Sellers of gari and beans popularly called ‘gob3’ or ‘Red Red’ in the Ashanti Region especially in Kumasi are no more selling the dish at one cedi.

A bowl is now going for one cedi fifty pesewas at the cheapest.

This is because the price of beans has shot up by 100% since October and consumers have started feeling the impact.

22-year-old Godbless Nuamah loves gari and beans. That is his go-to meal every day before the day ends. A day without eating this food means he has to spend more.

“Beans is one of my favorite foods because it’s less expensive as compared to the other foods,” he said.

His daily budget has been affected due to the price increase. As a student, the meal sustains him through the day at a minimal cost but the situation is different now.

“With four cedis I used to get satisfied but now I have to buy more than four cedis or I have to go for a second round to get fully satisfied,” he bemoaned.

Afia Mansah carefully pounds this quantity of beans in a mortar. This activity is to easily separate the chaff from the beans properly before she cooks it.

She then pours the beans on a perforated wooden tray, rubs her hands on the beans to get rid of the chaffs.

This is meant for her “gob3” food joint at Ayigya in Kumasi. Though a sack of beans is expensive, Mansah complains “the sack is full of chaffs”.

Just like other “gob3” sellers, she has increased the price of her beans to stay in business.

“I have stopped selling the beans at 1.00 cedis, it’s now 1.50pesewas or 2.00 cedis. Though I have increased the prices I hardly make profits like I used to,” she lamented.

Beans in retail are often sold in locally measured cups, container bowls, and sometimes bags for wholesale.

A cup of beans in the Kumasi Central Market was sold at 2.50p between January and September. It has suddenly shot up to 5.00 cedis per cup.

“The price of the beans keeps going up, that is why we have increased the prices and our customers complain about the new price,” she noted.

A bag of imported beans from neighbouring French-speaking countries sold between 300 cedis and 400 cedis at the beginning of the year, is now sold at 600 cedis.

Alhaji Baba is an importer of staple food. He attributes the increase to the CFA and the high cost of fertilizer prices.

“We import the beans from most of the French countries, unfortunately, the CFA keeps increasing. Most of my colleagues have stopped importing the beans,” he said.

Meanwhile, Baba’s customer, Comfort, says “she is unable to buy beans in large quantities due to the high price coupled with an increase in fuel prices.

“I can only afford to buy two sacks of beans with an amount of 2,000 cedis,” she said.

Well, it is evident that until the Ghana cedi stops depreciating and fuel prices are reduced, food prices will keep going high.

Indigenous oil palm producer Benso Oil (BOPP) has continued its fairytale run on the local bourse, leading the gainer’s table as its shares price grew by 74.83% from GH¢2.86 to GH¢5 in the month of October.

The rally, which began in June with the share price at GH¢2, has since gained 203% on that price valuation – bested only by FanMilk on the GSE for year-to-date performance. This has been sustained largely due to investor confidence in the firm’s performance beginning 2020 and an appreciation of the global price of palm oil, which has grown from an average of US$471 in 2018 to US$1,061 in Q2 of 2021.

A perusal of BOPP’s financials shows that its revenue grew from GH¢79.09million in 2018 to GH¢95.6million in 2019. FY2020 saw revenue reach GH¢123.8million, representing a 29% growth, and GH¢104.4million at the end of June this year – with the oil palm producer on course to meet its projected revenue target of GH¢194.5million by year-end. At the end of the third quarter, it had attained GH¢150.9million in revenue.

Commenting on the company’s performance when it met investors during a ‘Facts Behind the Figures’ session organised by the GSE, its Director, and General Manager, Samuel Avaala said: “2H2021 topline growth of 63% is attributable to the bullish world market crude palm oil prices, coupled with higher crop productivity from both the nucleus plantations, smallholders and out-growers. Operational efficiencies have also seen sustained high levels and continue to improve while cost discipline practices have ensured that unit production costs remained controlled in line with plans.

“This performance comes on the back of sustained operational efficiencies, strong production volumes, and the recovery of world market crude palm oil prices which began in early 2020. Benso Oil Palm Plantation PLC is set to maintain the strong profit trend by the end of the year by leveraging on its core competencies for production and taking advantage of the bullish world market price trend.

“The company is committed to conducting its business in a socially responsible and ecologically sustainable manner, through using internationally accepted best practices which deliver sustainable stakeholder and shareholder value.”

The share price of BOPP had soared to GH¢6.05 at beginning of the second trading week in November, as investors appear to have pitched their camp with BOPP – also based on its extensive community-wide social responsibility programmes, including its clinic.

Rest of the pack
The market is guaranteed its highest return in half a decade with the Composite Index (GSE-CI) returning a favourable 47.52% year-to-date (YTD). The equities market was also driven by the appreciation in the share price of Fan Milk Limited (FML), Republic Bank Ghana (RBGH), Enterprise Group (EGL) as well as Total Ghana, which realised about 39.75%, 39.53%, 9.13%, and 7.96% rise in share prices respectively.

Per the October 2021 data released by the Exchange, the main market’s cumulative performance from January to October 2021, in relation to the comparable period in 2020, shows there was a marginal dip in the volume of shares traded by 3.53% from 439.39 million last year to 423.91 million in 2021. Yet, in value terms, there was an increase of 39.26% from about GH¢341.71million to GH¢445.26million – indicating a continuous rise in the value of shares on the local equities market.

Accordingly, the year on year, market capitalisation and primary index, the GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI), shot up 21% and 55.90% respectively, with analysts anticipating further bullishness on the local bourse.

Agricultural Manufacturing Group (AMG) Ghana, a leading fertilizer marketing and technologies manufacturer is supporting the development of student entrepreneurs at the University of Ghana.

The Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER)-University of Ghana, Professor Peter Quartey, has advised the government to focus on two main areas – the agriculture and manufacturing sectors – if it wants to deliver sustainable jobs to tackle youth unemployment menace in the country.

Prof. said given the enormous amount of arable land available in all parts of the country, it presents the best opportunity for the government to introduce policies that will make agriculture attractive to the youth – as its value chain will further lead to job creation in the manufacturing sector.

“Agriculture and manufacturing are the two areas where we should be creating more jobs. We have to make agriculture more attractive. We have a lot of fertile lands, so we can go into commercial farming and support large-scale farmers.

“Then, we look at the value chain. We need to process more of the agricultural products. Once you process, it becomes manufacturing. To what extent are we promoting the manufacturing of agricultural products? This is for the private sector, but the government should provide the enabling environment for the private sector to flourish and be able to expand and employ more,” Prof. Quartey said.

Another area the professor encouraged the government to be particular about is the financial sector, as its robustness is what drives economies that want to industrialise and create jobs. “The financial sector should also be looked at because it is the engine of growth. When it goes down, it affects all critical sectors. So, agriculture, industry, and the financial sectors should be the main areas driving job creation,” he said.

Speaking ahead of the 2022 budget presentation sometime this month, Prof. Quartey said it will be better for Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to provide data on how the growth of the economy has translated into job creation in all sectors, in order to guide future policies on where to channel resources.

“We don’t want to see jobless growth, whereby we are one of the fastest-growing economies but do not translate into higher numbers in employment. It means the sectors that create the jobs are not growing, and so we want to know more about which sectors have grown and how we are tackling unemployment to minimise the challenge of jobless growth,” he said.

The promised jobs that are yet to come
The government, in the 2021 mid-year budget, said it was going to create someone million jobs in the next four years to alleviate the jobless situation among the youth through interventions under the Ghana CARES programme.

The initiatives, according to the finance minister, will be to promote growth in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), support new ventures, and stimulate innovation and start-ups.

One of such programmes, the minister said, is the Enterprise and Youth Support Fund (EYSF) which aligns with the government’s overall strategy of developing a competitive and viable private sector economy through the ‘YouBanc’ initiative that has the aim of financing youth-led start-up businesses across the country.

As part of this initiative, the minister said the government will be setting up an online investment hub for youth across the country to access information for the purpose of establishing businesses. Under this initiative, it is estimated that over 100,000 jobs will be created.