This economy is far from fixed

Government Statistician Dr. Grace Bediako presented what she called a revised growth estimate before television cameras in Accra on Wednesday, and told the nation that Ghana's economy grew by 7.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

According to the Chief Statistician, economic indicators showed a 1.1 percentage increase over the previous estimate of 6.6 percent. With the President locked up in what is already proving to be a fierce battle with Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, and lately, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah for flagbearership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2012 presidential election, it could not have been by accident that the ever-pliant Statistician was made to come out to make further claims of a rapidly growing economy.

No Ghanaian would wish that the economy of Ghana fails to grow. A rapidly growing economy should translate into improved living conditions of the people.  We state, without any inhibition though, that the growth of Ghana's economy under the former University don appears to be having a negative effect on the people.

As the front page story of this paper yesterday indicated, at a time President John Evans Atta Mills and his team of technocrats claim they are building a 'Better Ghana,' research findings indicate that most Ghanaians, a staggering 12.7 million of the 24 million population of this country, cannot afford the cost of feeding themselves and their families.

Yesterday, a television pundit, Deputy Minister of Information Baba Jamal said that the assertion could not be true because this nation had done so well in food production that other neighbouring nations, particularly, Burkina Faso, were buying foodstuff from Ghana.  It is this kind of mental block that is undermining attempts at diagnosing the ills of society, in order to fix what is not right.

Burkina Faso has been buying foodstuff from Ghana since ages. Ghanaian market women also frequent markets in our northern neighbouring nation.  The tomatoes that are doing the rounds in our markets are mainly brought in from Burkina Faso.

The Deputy Minister, and those he speaks for, ought to understand that the issue at stake, nonetheless, is not about who buys what from where. The issue discussed by this paper on its front page yesterday, was about the inability of Ghanaians to afford the prices of food items, because the prices keep rocketing.

Anybody visiting our markets would realise that inflation figures from the Statistical Service, at least in relation to the cost of foodstuff, have very little bearing on the actual rates of rising cost on the ground.

In moments such as this, The Chronicle wonders whether officialdom takes a serious interest in statistical indices showing what growth inures to when the market place has its own figures.

We are slowly reaching an era, when the administration of this country is developing a tunnel vision. It looks like that, because those who compiled the 2008 election manifesto of the ruling party had a dream of making this nation a better place under the Atta Mills administration. The notion appears to be that the 'Better Ghana' they envisaged arrived the moment Prof. John Evans Atta Mills went on to the podium at the Independence Square on the mid-morning of January 7, 2009, and recited the Presidential Oath.

The economy has still not responded to treatment. It is a fact that the administration would ignore at its own peril.