Empty Pockets Expose Inflation Scam & Optics; NPP Wants Positive Change In Peoples’ Pockets

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has told Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson that the government’s 5.5 per cent inflation figure is a paper statistic that has not reached the pockets of ordinary Ghanaians, and that tomorrow’s 2027 Budget must answer for the real cost of living, empty shops and scarce credit.

In a statement read on behalf of the party on Tuesday, by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi and Ranking Member on Parliament’s Economy and Development Committee, the NPP did not dispute the inflation figures. It simply questioned why electricity, water, transport, rent and school fees are rising faster than the wage that is meant to pay for them.

The NPP statement noted that “the minimum wage went up by GH¢1.80 a day, yet measured in trotro fares it buys 4.5 per cent less than a year ago, and measured in electricity it buys less power than the wage a worker earned in January 2025. The 5.5 per cent is held down by food. It is not the bill a family pays every month for transport, rent, light, water and school.

“Most of these prices were not set by the market. Utility tariffs, transport fares and the Ghana Card fee were all approved by a state regulator, a ministry or a legislative instrument. Government is raising the cost of living with its own hand while telling Ghanaians that inflation is under control.

The statement added: “So on Thursday, when the Finance Minister’s colleagues sing for him in the chamber about 5.5 per cent inflation, ask them how that compares with your rent, water, transport fares, electricity and school fees.”

The statement compared the headline rate to the minimum wage increase since January 2025. Electricity has risen 28.7 per cent, water 13.3 per cent, transport fares 14.1 per cent, housing, rent and utilities 10.5 per cent, school fees 9.4 per cent and services overall 11.5 per cent. The statement said against these, the minimum wage went up by 19.9 per cent and that increase does not stretch as far as it should.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah traced the gap between the official figure and the household bill to the Bank of Ghana’s liquidity operations. It said the Bank locked away a record GH¢93.56 billion in 2025 to “manage demand,” and spent GH¢16.73 billion paying banks to hold cedis out of the economy.

“When there is no money in your pocket, you cannot buy, and inflation on paper falls,” the statement said. It said the Bank overtightened, using what it called “shock therapy,” and that inflation has been below the bottom of the Bank’s 8 per cent plus-or-minus-two target for eleven months running, from December 2025 to October 2026.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that the human cost, is visible from Makola to Kantamanto: “Traders from Makola to Kantamanto reported lower Christmas sales than the year before. Private firms cut their selling prices for eleven months running just to win customers, and in the third quarter of 2025 household-facing services such as chop bars and hotels shrank by 7.2 per cent,” he said. “Ask any trader what disinflation means to her. Her shop is empty.”

The Association of Ghana Industries, he added, reported a significant fall in sales from early 2025 and warned plainly that liquidity is tight. Jobs have not followed the falling inflation either: unemployment stood at 13.1 per cent at the end of 2024, 12.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, and 13.0 per cent in the third. “Squeezing demand has not bought jobs,” the statement said.

On credit, the statement said cheaper interest rates on paper have not reached the trader, the farmer or the small manufacturer. Private-sector credit is now less than 8 per cent of GDP, against about 32 per cent in Kenya and 36 per cent across sub-Saharan Africa. Banks lend out only about 36 pesewas of every cedi deposited with them, it said.

“The trader, the farmer and the small manufacturer are still waiting,” Oppong Nkrumah said. The statement traced the decline from 16.1 per cent of GDP in 2017, about 13 per cent through COVID-19, 9.4 per cent in 2023 and 8.9 per cent in 2024, to under 8 per cent in 2026 after the policy rate was held at 28 per cent until July 2025.

The statement also challenged the government’s celebration of the cedi. “A currency held up by dollars poured into the market is not a strong currency. It is a propped-up currency,” it said. It said the cedi appreciated by about 40 per cent in 2025 after dollar injections, but by September 2026 had lost 9.5 per cent against the dollar for the year, and by early November close to 10.5 per cent, already worse than the whole of 2018.

It said the Bank of Ghana sold about $9.2 billion into the forex market between January and August, including $2.01 billion in June alone, while reserves fell from about $14.5 billion in February to about $11.1 billion by August. The Bank also recorded a loss of about GH¢8.3 billion from exchange-rate movements on its foreign assets and gold, the statement said. It warned that dollars are increasingly coming from small-scale gold, with GoldBod reporting $1.87 billion in September alone, and asked whether galamsey is worsening because the cedi is being propped up with small-scale gold.

The NPP demanded that the 2027 Budget publish the full cost of the Bank’s 2026 liquidity operations and a recapitalisation plan with amounts and timelines; publish monthly figures on dollars sold into the forex market, how much came from small-scale gold, and GoldBod’s timetable for full traceability.

In addition, the statement asked that government should set the 2027 minimum wage against the cost of essentials and publish the Tripartite Committee’s technical report; disclose the combined household cost of every regulated price increase approved in 2025 and 2026 and publish a full financing plan for the New Economy before any money is spent.

It also demanded that government should publish a verified jobs ledger for 2025 and 2026 and release the 2026 labour force data before the budget debate ends; and set out a credible plan to get credit flowing to traders, farmers and small manufacturers.

“An economy is not run for the statistician,” Oppong Nkrumah said. “Inflation figures, exchange rates and interest rates matter only if they translate into money in people’s pockets, goods in traders’ shops and jobs for our young people. On all three, the Government’s good figures have not reached the Ghanaian household.”

Tomorrow, Dr. Forson will have his chance to respond and explain why he believes the ‘New Economy’ contained in his budget statement for 2027 is the best thing that has happened to Ghana in recent times.