Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor and the entire Mills-led administration have been cautioned to stop their self glorification over the decline of the country's inflation rate. As the rate of inflation continues to decline, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) youth activist and leading member of the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), Mr. Samuel Awuku, says Dr. Duffuor, his team as well as the NDC government cannot claim credit for the current decline in inflation because they have not implemented a single economic policy which could have contributed to this development. According to him, moral situation, reserve ratio, direct credit control, discount rate and open market operation are the five instruments for controlling fiscal regime, maintaining that "which of these has the ruling National Democratic Congress implemented since it assumed power. I am challenging the government to explain to Ghanaians whether indeed they have done anything to reduce inflation in this country." He told Ghanaian Observer that the story about the decline of inflation in the past 18 months should be attributed to the prudent economic measures embarked upon by the New Patriotic Party government in the later parts of its administration. The NPP government, he stressed, among other prudent economic measures, used the reserve ratio which deadline was in 2009 to control inflation, disclosing that "this has largely contributed to decline of inflation for the last couple of the years. So the NDC government led by President John Evans Atta Mills and his economic team should also come out to tell us what they have also done since they are claiming credit for this development." The rate of inflation fell to a near 20-year low of 9.08 per cent in November, a decline of 0.30 percentage points from October, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) said on Wednesday. The rate is the lowest in about two decades since the 8.4 per cent recorded in June 1992. Inflation has consistently fallen since June 2009, when the rate stood at 20.74 per cent. Mr Ebow Duncan, Head of Economic Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), said the downward pressure on inflation could be attributed to the food and non-alcoholic beverages group and the non-food group. The food and non-alcoholic beverages group has been recording single digit inflation rate since January 2010, falling from 9.08 to 5.32 per cent in November. On the other hand, non-food inflation though on the decline, has been recording double digit inflation, reaching 11.50 per cent in November this year. Inflation rates in the regions ranged from 5.72 per cent in the Volta Region to 14.86 per cent in Greater Accra Region. Six Regions - Western, Volta, Eastern, Ashanti, Central and Brong Ahafo registered rates below the national rate of 9.08 per cent. Additionally, Mr. Awuku charged Dr. Duffuor and the Mills-led administration to mention a single economic policy they have used to grow the economy as they claimed, citing NPP government's capitalisation programme which contributed to the growth of the economy. "If the NDC government believe that the economy is strong enough why are workers not being paid? As we speak now, most of the public workers and also we have people in certain critical sectors who have not been paid...if the government says the economy is good, why is government not paying and servicing its debts because World Bank has even complained about it that if we don't service our debts it will worry us in future," he said. On employment within the economy, one critical area of the economy he raised questions about was the hike in taxes, adding that it did not make sense to burden the public sector with higher taxes while they contributed immensely to the economy. Source: Ghanaian Observer