His comments come as recent data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicates that the continuous increase in transport fares and food prices across the country has pushed the national year-on-year inflation for April 2022 to 23.6 percent.

The figure is over 13 percentage points higher than the upper band of the inflation target for 2022.

The data also indicates that this is the first time in 29 months that inflation for imported items exceeded domestic inflation. Whilst inflation for locally produced items was 23.0 per cent, inflation for imported items was 24.7 per cent.

Speaking at the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra, he explained that the only way by which imported inflation in Ghana can be minimised is if the country is able to raise more entrepreneurs to produce locally.

“Cabinet was quite precise about the budget and the theme of building an entrepreneurial society. So the GH¢10 billion intervention where you’re going to have people create their own jobs and have work to do is going to be important and enhance productivity towards this. Because of imported inflation, what are you going to do about food, fuel, and financing out there? The question is whether we can get our people to be more productive so that we move towards an environment where people are in control of their destiny.”

Ghana’s economy has in recent times experienced a downturn.

Already, industry players have cited the depreciating cedi, spike in fuel prices, inflation rates and the general increase in cost of living as some causes of the situation.