Coronavirus: Food, transportation costs likely to increase – GSS

Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, says there is likely going to be a hike in food and transportation for the months of April and May.

According to him, the hike will be as result of disruptions in the supply chain due to the outbreak of Coronavirus that has rendered a restriction on movements.

“Due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, movements have been restricted and supply chains have been disrupted and therefore we expect to see some increase in transportation and also in food prices so definitely in April and May we expect to see some variations in the pathway of our inflation,” Prof Annim said in an interview with 3News.

Following the announcement of partial lockdown by the President, Prof. Annim said he expected Ghanaians to attach some humanity to the way things were done with regards to pricing.

“The reason why I say that is, this crisis that is affecting all of us so when we take advantage of the situation and increase prices, from my point of view, I don’t think it’s morally right to do that”

“We could have learnt from what other countries where there was a direct executive decision that shouldn’t be any increases in prices and countries such as Rwanda did that and this where I felt we should’ve been strong on from the policy point of view either to get people to be morally swayed that we don’t need to increase prices in these times because of the times we’re all facing,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has rolled out a Business Tracker, which is an online survey targeting businesses with the aim of assessing the socio-economic impact of Coronavirus in Ghana.

The study will also assess measures put in place by businesses to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, as well as efforts to build better recovery for businesses and cross-border trade.