Policy Makers Clueless�About Severity Of Economic Situation- Stephen Amoah

An Investment Consultant, Stephen Amoah, who is unfurling his sleeves to contest as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Nhyiaeso constituency, on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region, has described policy makers as clueless with regards to their management of the economic situation Ghana is currently facing. Citing Bank of Ghana�s recent decision to adjust the monetary policy upwards, he noted that almost all the decisions taken by the government and its other core subsidiaries seem to rather aggravate the plight of Ghanaians. According to him, the explanation given by government machinery that stabilizing the economy is to increase interest rate to draw money back from the system is �simply� a strategic drift, as it would rather worsen the economic plight of the people. In a statement release to the media yesterday, the consultant who also response to the name Sticker, noted that, �it would not be professional to infer that the members of the Monetary Policy Committee are incompetent but it could be that they are deliberately making wrong decisions just to create wealth for the government without thinking about how it would affect the living conditions of the people� �It is true that monetary policy is used as one of the financial or economic tools to manage inflationary rate all over the world. However, in this particular situation it is being misapplied by the Bank of Ghana,� Amoah observed. The Nhyiaeso MP-in-waiting explained that �Inflationary rate movement can be mostly induced by demand pull or cost push. Either people have so much disposable income and are buying more on the market resulting in increase in inflation�. In this case, he continued, the monetary policy as a tool has to be adjusted upwards or in simple terms interest rate has to be increased to withdraw money from the system to reduce high level of its circulation thereby decreasing inflation. The question is, are people having more money to really buy more on the market? Is the current inflationary trend as result of high demand on the market or increase in cost of production? The recent producer price index (PPI) was about 28%. Energy, which is very critical in production, is unreasonably high, water is either not available or expensive, importation cost is all time high. For taxes, one does not have to put it on the discussion table as we are being governed by a government that solely believes in Contractionary Fiscal Policy and yet we do not enjoy its consequential social intervention policies, and wondered �Why should the authority make a decision that will further increase costs of production. The present inflationary rate is completely out of cost push and any attempt to increase interest rate will be totally wrong and worsen our present predicaments�. He is therefore calling on government to �be calm in finding short and long term solutions� adding that, For the cedi depreciation anybody; whether individual or institution that thinks that there can be short term solution will be doing that out of limited knowledge�. Stephen Amoah is also advising the Central Bank of Ghana to review their recent decision. �The management should also redesign the Monetary Policy Framework by critically analyzing the key policy tools such as the open market operations, the inter-bank�s lending rate and the reserve requirements. I think the Central Bank has a huge task of working on the alignment of Ghana's economic vehicle� he implored.