Dr. William Peprah
Inflation could hit 40% by August 2022, if policy makers fail to act decisively to reverse the current trend.
Chief Finance Officer of the Valley View University, Dr. William Peprah, who made the prediction, said the Bank of Ghana should increase its policy rate and reserve requirements for banks to reduce lending.
Dr. Peprah said the rising inflation will worsen the cost of living of Ghanaians.
“First, government must check it spending. When government does that, the impact is that government will have to revise its growth rate set for 2022. So the 5.4% set must go down,” he explained.
He also stressed the need for the Bank of Ghana to quickly implement the contractionary monetary policy.
“Central Bank, as I have already mentioned, must be thinking of bringing what we call the contractionary monetary policy. That is one increasing monetary policy rate, so that we will control inflation rate, and to also increase the reserve requirement for banks.
“In that case, banks will be limited by giving more money or putting more money into the economy. In effect, we have to intentionally slowdown the growth to be able to curtail what we are seeing now,” he said.
“If not, and if it goes like this, it will be getting to the 1998/1999/2000 period that inflation was around 40%. And if we do not take care, by August 2022, we will hit about 40% inflation rate,” he warned.
A Daily Guide Report