Ghana’s Vice President H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has indicated that countries and economies in the world are going through hard times as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine stressing that Ghana is not an exception.
“Countries and economies through out the world are experiencing severe challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic and the more recent Russia-Ukraine war, the pandemic which started early in 2020 resulted in the greatest economic depression since the 1930s with most countries recording negative growth”.
The Veep continues “supply chain disruption and the rising price of oil has resulted in the prices of fuel going up across the globe with petrol prices doubling in most countries. In fact in the world today the highest petroleum prices can be found in countries like Hongkong, the Netherlands, Zimbabwean, Germany, Israel and the United Kingdom”.
He says even advance economies in the world such as UK and USA are also suffering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine War accentuating that the hikes in fuel prices affects the bigger economies.
“The global increase in fuel prices is causing hardships in even the most advance economies like the United States of America” Veep noted.
Dr. Bawumia added that, the war between Russia and Ukraine affects food supply chain stating that the more the war continues, the more its effect on food supply in the world stressing that, food prices and the increase commodity prices has been exacerbated by the war.
“The increase in commodity prices has been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia-Ukraine together account for 30% of the global wheat export, the longer the conflict ensues, the greater will be the disruption to global food supply” he adds.
Dr. Bawumia in furtherance, noted that Ghana depends on Ukraine for about 60% supply of iron ore and steel whiles Russia supplies about 30% of Ghana’s imported grains, 50% of flower and 39% of fertilizer indicating that “we are directly affected by the Russia-Ukraine War, unfortunately we do not know when it will be over”.
The Vice President made these revelations during his Public Lecture on the State of Ghana’s Economy being held at the Pentecost Conventional Centre in Kasoa on Thursday April 7, 2022.
