Traders have called on the government to take urgent steps to reduce fuel in order to ease the financial troubles they are currently facing.
The cost of transporting food from farm gates in rural areas to urban markets has grown, according to the traders, as a result of the ongoing increase in fuel prices.
Additionally, they said that middlemen who actively participated in transporting foods to urban markets had raised the price of their services by capitalizing from the rise in fuel prices.
The trading community made the call at an interactive forum hosted by the Cabinet Ministerial Committee, which the President formed to investigate the reasons behind the high price of foods on the market.
The focus of yesterday’s interaction was on the high costs of food on the market, even though the ministerial committee is educating the public about the impact of the government’s economic measures on several sectors.
The committee stated that trips to 10 marketplaces over the course of the previous two weeks revealed that the wholesale price of tomatoes at farm gates in rural areas was approximately GH300 but that it surged to GH900 on urban markets.
According to the survey, wholesale prices for yam varied depending on the location between GH 500 and GH 1,500, but increased by almost 100% on urban marketplaces, particularly Agbogbloshie.
The traders argued that the growing disparity between farm gate and urban market pricing was mostly caused by the high cost of fuel.
Participants in the forum included vendors of yam, maize, fruits, and tomatoes, as well as transport operators.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, the Minister of Transport, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information, the Deputy ministers of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, and Gender, Children, and Social protection, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, all spoke at the forum.