Unreliable data making economic assessment difficult

Dr. Joseph Abbey, Executive Director, and Centre for Policy Analysis on Wednesday said unreliable data was making true assessment of economic performance in the country very difficult.
He said reliance exclusively on banking sector data could paint a rosier picture of good economic performance even at a time government was really plagued with serious financial problems, making it difficult to meet payment for executed projects.
"In the circumstances, healthy bank balances could be illusory with large amounts of payments vouchers bloating up the float," he said.
Dr Abbey was reviewing the first quarter performance of the economy at a business luncheon in Accra organized by the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
According to Dr Abbey, records indicated that official estimates of budgetary outcomes in the annual budget statements, which were based on payments data from the Controller and Accountant General Department also failed to paint the correct picture in as much as payment arrears continue to mount, including statutory transfers.
Dr Abbey, who made reference to an International Monetary Fund Report, said there were also fears that the consumer price index over the years had been substantially under recorded.
"The practice of forcing a "no price change" into the system when a missing observation first occurs certainly inappropriate in periods of high inflation-is the blame for the serious statistical blunder."
The Advisor was, therefore, working to re-compute the CPI indices for publishing very soon. Dr Abbey, however, argued that leaving the computing of the national income statistics in the hands of a peripatetic advisor or outside expert was unacceptable, no matter how the situation.
On the economy, Dr Abbey said erratic fiscal and monetary policies and persistent delays in structural reforms had left the economy in some respects, weaker than it was four years ago.
He described as ambitious the revised end-of-year target inflation of 22 per cent, saying it would require an exemplary fiscal performance and sustained macroeconomic stability to achieve it.
Other factors for achieving the target are a steady decline in petroleum prices on international markets for the first quarter average of 31 dollars per barrel to 25 dollars per barrel and an exceptionally good food harvest.