A tomato seller at the Mallam Attah market in Accra has blamed shop owners for the increase in prices of the foodstuff they sell.

 According to the trader, because shop owners increase the prices of their wares, the tomato farmer would also increase the price at which he sells to the wholesalers, who intern transfer the cost to the retailer, thence to the consumer.

She therefore urged shop owners to be cautious about how they increase the prices of their products.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, she asked the regulators of the economy to caution the shop owners against the incessant increase in prices.

This, she stated is because "we are all citizens of the country. If everything goes well, it is for our benefit, and vice versa.”

Tuesday’s edition of PM Express was dubbed ‘Market Edition’. It focused on the effects of inflation on trading activities at the Mallam Attah Market.

Meanwhile, she said the prices of tomatoes have been stable so far since it’s a seasonal commodity.

Also, butchers from the same market have lamented the effects of the cedi depreciation on their businesses.

The butchers complained to JoyNews’ Evans Mensah on Tuesday that the current challenges with the depreciating cedi have been crippling their businesses and increasing the cost of importing livestock from Burkina Faso and other countries.

“In Ghana, we don’t have cows. How many cows do we have in Ghana? We import them from Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Togo so we change the cedi into CFA franc anytime the CFA rises,” one of the butchers said.

This follows the Cedi’s recent sharp decline after it was pegged at 10 Cedis to the US dollar.

The butchers called on the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to address the depreciating value of the cedi or resign.

“Now if you have 10, 000 Ghana cedis and you are doing business by two months’ time, it will depreciate at about 8,000 or 8,500… the cedi doesn’t stand at one place that is our main problem,” they noted.