Lovers of local delicacies have expressed concerns over the continuous shrinking balls of Kenkey in the country especially in Accra.
Kenkey is a staple dish prepared with corn dough in the country. It is a very popular dish and is usually served with pepper sauce and fried fish.
However, the price of its main ingredient, maize, is soaring. Some kenkey sellers in Accra say a bag of the crop, which sold at GH¢220 last year, is now selling at GH¢550.
This is affecting the purchasing power of consumers who are reeling from the sudden hike as vendors are forced to pass on the cost to them.
Market researchers Esoko has said its survey is showing an increase of more than 100%.
A Deputy Minister for Foods and Agriculture, Yaw Frimpong Addo has assured the Ghanaian populace of stability in prices of foodstuffs latest by September.
According to him, the Ministry hopes that within the given month and October, there would be more supply of goods and produce which will help settle the upsurge in prices.
It is our hope that once the new produce has been harvested by end of September, October prices will stabilize because we are going to have a lot of foodstuffs in the market and naturally the demand and supply will settle the price,” he said.
This, he said, was because the new crops planted would be harvested between August and September.
Lots of them will be harvested especially the middle sector and the Southern sector,” he said.
Speaking on the Business Edition of PM Express, Addo said that “the Northern sector are now planting and if by three months they are ready, it will be harvested so in the Northern sector.”
He indicated that the produce that would be harvested from the northern belt between October and November is expected to last to the next planting season.
We were looking at October, November and they will also a harvest and that one will take us through next year up to the time of planting up to the time of the next harvest.”
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It’s a technical thing and it’s just unfortunate that last year we had bad weather in the middle and Southern belt and it affected the output in these areas but for the North that has very good rains, we were going to face some serious drought in this country. Thank God that we escaped that calamity,” he added.