Cedi crisis pushes prices of foodstuff up

Esoko Ghana has attributed the price increase of commodities in August,2015 in the country to drought and the volatility of the cedi. According to Esoko Ghana, the inability of suppliers to meet market demands contributed to the trend. Commodities like tomatoes, gari, cassava, millet among others saw an increase in prices across the markets in Ghana from July to the end of August, 2015.
For example a crate of tomatoes in the last week of August gained 44 percent in Dambai to close at GHS 230.00. In Accra it went for GHS 350.00, rising by 40 percent from last week’s price. In Kumasi , it gained 33 percent to close the week at GHS 163.00 while in Takoradi it gained 22 percent to close the week at GHS 260. In an interview with Citi Business News Content Manager of Esoko Ghana Commodity Index (EGCI), Francis Adjei called for support for farmers.
“As of August if you look at all the commodities you will see that marginally there were some slight increase in them, this is because in the month of August apart from some few commodities that you can get because it is seasonal all the others were out of season. We were expecting tomatoes to have gone down significantly in July and August, as you realize that if you look at tomatoes the price had gone so high due to the fact that the rains affected the harvesting since they did not come as expected,” he said.
With the depreciation of the cedi it affected the increase in prices due to cost of import of commodities from outside the country. ‘Traders had to pay more as the cedi was so volatile and was floating which affected rice and even tomatoes from Burkina Faso’. Content Manager of Esoko Ghana Commodity Index (EGCI), Francis Adjei said.