‘Bawumia’s view on statistics misleading’

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has stated that it was misleading for the running mate of the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for Election 2016 to use the comparison of food prices and inflation rates quoted by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and the GSS in 2012 to dent it credibility of the service.

It said had Dr Mahamudu Bawumia taken time to check the facts from the service and MoFA, he would have known that the coverage and the methodologies used by the two institutions differed and did not have a direct correspondence.

Reacting to a lecture Dr Bawumia had delivered last Tuesday at a press conference in Accra yesterday, the acting Government Statistician, Dr Philomena Nyarko, said the GSS produced inflation rates for food, which included non-alcoholic beverages and non-food items, while MoFA compiled information on average food prices only.

In addition, she said the service’s food basket contained 82 food items, while MoFA collected information on 24 food items,  excluding non-alcoholic beverages.

“Therefore, the food basket of the GSS cannot be compared to that of MoFA. Furthermore, the GSS collects prices from fixed outlets in 42 selected market centres across the country for computation on the weighted Consumer Price Index and inflation, with 2012 as the base year,” she said.

Data used interchangeably

Dr Nyarko said it appeared that prices and inflation rates, which were changes in the general price levels, had been used interchangeably in the lecture.

“To the best of our knowledge, MoFA does not compute consumer price indices or inflation as stated in the lecture and the figures cannot be traced to MoFA. What does Dr Bawumia seek to achieve by comparing the supposed inflation data from MoFA to that of the GSS?”  she quizzed. 

She said in all 267 items, consisting of both food and non-food commodities, were collected from market centres in both rural and urban areas by field officers of the service on a monthly basis.

She said GSS officers visited the market centres to collect the prices of items in the first week of every month.

“In the case of rural markets, the field officers visit the market centres on market days, while in the case of urban markets they visit and collect the prices any day of the week.

“The consumer price index (CPI) measures change in the cost of a representative basket of goods and services and it involves weighting together price changes for different categories of goods and services with an appropriate share that reflects the budgets of the household’s expenditure of the items.

“An increase in the prices of items whose weights are small will not have much impact on the overall inflation rate,” she said.

She said the MoFA, on the other hand, collected average prices of 24 food items from the 10 regional capitals and five other market centres at Techiman, Obuasi, Ejura, Mankessim and Tema.

She said it appeared that the price and inflation rates, which were changes in the general price levels, were used interchangeably in Dr Bawumia’s lecture.

Admission of error

On the issue of the GDP growth rate for 2009, she said Dr Bawumia had asked why the overall 2009 non-oil GDP growth rate was 2.2 per cent, while the agricultural sector grew by 7.2 per cent, industry by 4.5 per cent and services by 5.6 per cent.

“The GSS wishes to state that there was an error during the transmission of the data onto its website. The correct figure is 4.8 per cent and not the 2.2 per cent which has subsequently been identified and corrected.

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) raised a similar concern in January 2015 and it was provided with the correct figure.

“It may interest the public to note that the 2009 GDP growth rate of 4.8 per cent was the figure provided to the IMF in January 2015,” Dr Nyarko stated.

Disparity in presentation

She expressed appreciation to the NPP’s running mate’s interest in the production of official statistics in Ghana.

She, however, asked interested individuals and institutions to contact the GSS for a better understanding of the methodologies adopted in the computation of the CPI, inflation rates and other economic and social indicators.

She added that the GSS had been producing consumer price indices and inflation for the country since 1995, saying: “In computing these indices, the GSS is always guided by internationally acceptable standards, methodologies and best practices.”

Net indirect taxes

With regard to net indirect taxes, she said Dr Bawumia had questioned why the real growth rate for indirect taxes was equal to the real growth rate at basic prices for all the years since 2009.

“It must be stated that the method for computing net indirect taxes in constant prices has been revised to align with the recommended treatment outlined in the 2008 system of national accounts and this is consistent with the GSS revision policy.

“The recommendation in the 2008 system of national accounts (SNA) is to use a related quantity indicator to derive a volume series for taxes. Ideally, indirect taxes should not contribute substantially to GDP growth,” she said.