Special Report: Traders Blame Poor Christmas Sales on Akufo-Addo

Makola Market in Accra, Ghana

Accra, Ghana, December 14, 2018//-With barely some few days to Christmas festive season, traders at the Accra Central Business District and other parts of Ghana have poured their venom on the President Akufo-Addo-led government for doing nothing to increase sales of their products.

According to them, the hardship economic conditions coupled with hikes in petroleum prices and their concomitant effects on lorry fares have affected their businesses, while some of them are planning to close down their shops and sit at home.

A cross-section of traders who spoke to African Eye Report indicated that since the assumption of office of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, sales at the Accra Central Business District and other market centres across the country are not being anything to write home about.

Sleeping on the business
The African Eye Report saw some of the traders sleeping in their shops, instead of transacting businesses. An electric gadget shop owner, Madam Grace Mensah, when woken up by this publication to ask her about the business sentiment in the market, she stated: “My son, don’t disturb me. I am resting since the market has not been good for the past months. I had the feeling earlier that the situation would have changed for the better in this month, but it hasn’t been improved”.

Madam Mensah was quick to add that she has been wasting her money to and from the market, without selling anything, saying “at times no-one comes to my shop to ask for anything”.

She observed that during the previous government the situation was better, in terms of business. But, Madam Mensah was hopeful that the business activity would improve next year.

Another trader who sells mobile phone accessories told this website: “The system is not good and that is why I look bored”, after he woken from his long nap to speak to African Eye Report.

Closed shops and the tomato glut
Surprisingly, as at 12 noon, some of the shops were not opened for business. The tomato sellers were also counting their losses as their products they brought for neighbouring Burkina Faso were going bad.

In the words of Madam Yaa Konadu: “We the tomato sellers are planning to change to other businesses. This is because people do not buy the commodity as they used to”.

Madam Konadu, who spoke in pidgin-English, said over four boxes of her tomatoes went bad, due to lack of market, stressing: “Majority of tomato sellers this Christmas season are counting their loses”.

The tomato sellers also raised concern over the recent petroleum price hikes, stressing that it increased the prices of tomato at the farm gates, as well as cost of transport to the urban centres.

At Lapaz, a suburb of Accra, Yaw Obeng, a trader who sells television sets and sound systems, lamented about the sharp depreciation of the Ghana Cedi (Ghana currency) against its major trading currencies notably, the U.S Dollar, the UK Pound Sterling, and the Euro, is affecting his business.

Though he lauded the Bank of Ghana’s intervention in soaring up the Ghana Cedi by pumping Dollars in the market, Mr Obeng said it was a temporary measure.

At the time of going to the press, the Ghana Cedi was trading at 4 Cedis 99 Pesewas as against US Dollar 1 in most commercial banks in the country. So, Mr Obeng and other importers would use more Ghana Cedis to buy few US Dollars to import their products.

Optimism
But Isaac Gorleku, a trader at Kantamanto Market believes that business would pick up from the beginning of the second quarter of next year.

A drugstore seller at one of the pharmacies at the Alhaji-Tabora, a suburb of Accra, Madam Angela, attributed the lack of business to high transportation cost and low wages among others. Since the increase in prices of petroleum products, the government has not yet increased the salary of workers, she added.

Economic activity continues to pick-up

However, according to the November 2018 Monetary Policy Committee Report of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), economic activity continues to pick-up although the trend remains below potential.

“The Bank’s real Composite Index of Economic Activity (CIEA) recorded an annual growth of 4.2 percent in September 2018, compared with 4.0 percent in the corresponding period of 2017”.

This was mainly supported by exports, industrial consumption of electricity, private sector credit expansion, domestic Value Added Tax (VAT), and key manufacturing sales, it added.

The latest business and consumer confidence survey conducted in October 2018 showed some softening of sentiments, the Governor of BoG, Dr Ernest Addison stressed.

Credit conditions easing

Similarly, the report noted that the latest credit conditions survey shows an easing of credit stance with increases in banks’ credit and loans to both households and enterprises as banks continue to strengthen their balance sheet and the deadline for meeting the minimum capital approaches.

“As a result, private sector credit has continued to recover, but at a moderate pace. Private sector credit grew by 11.4 percent in October 2018 compared with a growth of 14.9 percent in October 2017”.

In real terms, private sector credit expanded by 1.7 percent compared with 2.9 percent over the same period in 2017”.

By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report

 

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