Many Ghanaians have become apprehensive as a result of rising food prices, understanding that they will have to spend more to feed themselves and their family now that food prices have climbed in the marketplaces.
Many people feel that this is due to rising fuel prices, because when fuel prices rise, other products such as food prices rise as well.
While both consumers and market women are protesting about this, the minister of agriculture is claiming differently.
According to him, the assertion that the price of food goods in the market has increased is false, since data obtained by his team shows that the price of food products in the market has not risen.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, believes that food prices have not rise as some have claimed in recent months. He believes that because Ghana is in harvest season, which means there are more food products available in the markets, food prices have automatically come down.
Many people have thought that because the minister does not go to the market to buy food like everyone else, he is unaware of the current market condition, but the minister has refuted this claim.
While the agriculture minister does not go to the market directly, he claims that he does has a way of knowing what is going on there. In addition to his team going to interact with market women to collect data, he revealed that his wife also goes there to buy food products, and that if prices had increased or if there are shortages of food products in the market, she would have told him about it. However, she has not, and this allows him to know what is going on in the market directly.
“My wife also goes to the market so I know food is cheap. If she tells me there is no food then I’m in trouble,” Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto affirmed his point about why food prices have not risen, why there is more food on the market, and why it is also relatively inexpensive.
