Ghanaians cutting consumption, skipping meals as cost-of-living pressures bite — Ayerakwa

Ghanaians are increasingly adapting their lifestyles and cutting back on basic needs as persistent cost-of-living pressures erode household purchasing power, economist and researcher Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa has said.

Ayerakwa, the Director of Research and Administration at Africa Policy Lens, said households were responding to economic hardship by reducing consumption, seeking cheaper alternatives and, in some cases, cutting the number of meals they eat each day.

“The cost of living pressure index is 44.7 and that signals significant pressure,” he said on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Thursday (27 August).

He said the responses being observed among households should not be mistaken for lifestyle choices but understood as survival mechanisms.

According to Ayerakwa, people adjust their consumption patterns according to their incomes, with those facing financial constraints increasingly looking for cheaper alternatives for food and other essentials.

He cited consumers travelling longer distances to buy cheaper meals as an example of how households were adapting to declining purchasing power.

“There are those who are not able to eat three square meals,” Ayerakwa said. “There are those who are able to just eat once.” He described such behaviour as an “adaptation mechanism” to economic pressure rather than a fashion or preference.

Housing and transport were also placing significant pressure on household budgets, he said.

Ayerakwa said some workers were being forced to live far from their workplaces because they could not afford accommodation closer to Ghana’s major business centres, resulting in long and costly daily commutes.

He also raised concerns about poor households’ access to utilities, particularly electricity and water.

He said many low-income households sharing electricity meters could effectively lose access to lifeline electricity benefits because consumption on a shared meter could exceed the threshold used to classify lifeline consumers.

He added that some households without reliable access to piped water were forced to buy water in small quantities, creating another significant expense.

“Just two gallons is costing you five Ghana cedis,” he said, arguing that a household of four or five people could spend GH¢20 to GH¢30 a day on water alone.

The cumulative pressure from food, transportation, accommodation, utilities and healthcare, he said, was leaving households with little money for other basic needs.

Ayerakwa linked the pressure to increased reliance on self-medication, saying some people could not afford basic healthcare.

He said policymakers should therefore make household well-being a central component of economic policy rather than focusing predominantly on headline macroeconomic figures.

“People are going through a lot of economic pressures,” he said.

AsaaseRadio