…Johns Hopkins University professor
A Professor of Applied Economics at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, Prof. Steve H. Hanke, has revealed that a proper measurement of inflation in Ghana shows the rate is over 80%.
Tweeting his findings, Prof. Hanke called the Akufo-Addo government’s pegging of the inflation rate at 31.7% as bogus.
He also describes the claims by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana that inflation is decelerating as nonsense from Ernest Addison, “dreaming.”
“The Gov. of the Bank of Ghana, Ernest Addison, claimed in July 2022 that inflation was “decelerating.” Addison was dreaming,” tweeted Professor Hanke.
He adds, “Today, I measure inflation in GHA at 80.52%/yr, 2.5x the bogus official rate.”
Prof. Haanke adds that to rein in inflation, Ghana must install a currency board.
Steve H. Hanke is a professor of environmental health and engineering at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
He is also a senior fellow and director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC, and co-director of the Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise in Baltimore, Maryland.
This latest take once again dangles question marks over the trustworthiness of the Bank of Ghana which, has already in the recent past, come under accusations of secretly printing money to help the troubled Akufo-Addo government.
Hanke is known for his work as a currency reformer in emerging-market countries such as Albania, Argentina, Bulgaria Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Estonia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Russia, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. He was a senior economist with President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1981 to 1982, and has served as an adviser to heads of state in countries throughout Asia, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is also known for his work on currency boards, dollarization, hyperinflation, water pricing and demand, benefit-cost analysis, privatization, and other topics in applied economics.
Hanke has written extensively as a columnist for Forbes magazine and other publications. He is also a currency and commodity trader.