Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, has indicated that government’s One District One Factory (1D1F) program will in the long-term help Ghana deal with the increase in imported inflation.

According to her, in the next five to ten years, the program will yield the intended results and reduce the level of importation in Ghana.

The latest data released by the Ghana Statistical Service showed that high-level of imports contributed to the high rate of inflation in the month of April.

Inflation for the month of April hit 23.6%, highest since 2004.

However, speaking in an interview, Dr. Abena Osei Asare said “With the inflation, we will all admit that a chunk component of that is due to imported inflation. That is why the government, when you look into the 2022 budget government has put aside over 200 million Cedis to boost the 1D1F program.

“So far the government has opened 158 district factories at various stages of completion, we will not see the effects now but we are hoping that within five and ten years, we should be able to produce most of these things that we import that have contributed immensely to our inflation going up.

“The vision of this government is that we are hoping that as we put more money into 1D1F, we will be able to get factories across every district and we will be able to produce some of these things that we import.”

Meanwhile, Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Tsornam Akpeloo, stated that local production needs to be boosted to make the country self-reliant.

“There is no way we can come out of this problem by not having clearly defined locally produced items to consume. The call to localize is what we are asking for to stabilize our system.”

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta also stated that, “Today, 41 African economies are severely exposed to, at least, one of three concurrent crises, rising food prices, rising energy prices tightening financial conditions Finance Ministers now call it the dreaded three Fs; Food, fuel and financial conditions.

“That is just a ripple through in all Africa, and food prices easily about 34 percent higher, crude oil prices some 60 percent higher, and global inflation has risen we saw our numbers yesterday moved to 23.6 percent, a good chunk of it being imported inflation.”