THE GHANA Statistical Service (GSS) has announced it has commenced the Annual Household and Income Expenditure Survey (AHIES 2022) for selected households in the country.

The survey was launched following a 2-day virtual and 17-day face-to-face training for 280 field officers.

The AHIES 2022 is a survey whose main objective is to obtain data to estimate quarterly and annual household final consumption expenditure to support the compilation of quarterly and annual GDP by the expenditure approach.

Outcomes from the AHIES exercise include the rebasing of the GDP, the generation of data to support monitoring of targets under 12 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and continuous provision of indicators on the welfare of persons in Ghana.

Some of the key macroeconomic indicators to be generated from the AHIES include quarterly GDP, regional GDP, quarterly unemployment, graduate unemployment, underemployment, inequality, growth elasticity of poverty, consumption expenditure poverty and multidimensional poverty.

Further, the AHIES as the first such panel survey will provide important data on labour and welfare mobility to better understand some of the dynamics in the labour market and how households move in and out of poverty.

The AHIES Coordinator and Head of National Accounts Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr. Francis Bright Mensah reminded the Field Officers on the importance of the AHIES which would enhance the sources of data for GDP computation.

He stressed the importance of collecting quality data and the mechanisms put in place for quality assurance such as the constitution of Data Quality Monitoring Teams and a dashboard for real-time data quality monitoring. He stated that the survey will produce reports at the end of each quarter as such it was necessary that the data collected would be of high quality to facilitate timely release of results.
The funding for the survey is a World Bank loan to the Government of Ghana.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, stressed that professional solidarity that is a collective effort was required by all to collect data in the flawless manner is required to generate relevant and accurate statistics for decision-making. He appealed to all the Field Officers to strictly observe all the COVID-19 protocols and reminded them that GSS was able to conduct the census at the height of the pandemic due to the adherence to the safety protocols.

He concluded by re-echoing the earlier statement on seeing the value of participation in the first AHIES and reminded Officers that data quality will be the basis of quarterly renewal of contracts for the AHIES and recruitment for other surveys and censuses to be conducted by the Statistical Services in the next few years.

Representative of the World Bank, Paul Andres Corral Rodas, gave brief remarks on the benefits of the AHIES. This included the generation of regional data to understand the contribution of regions to national GDP and inequality, the release of quarterly labour force indicators and the panel component which will provide insight on vulnerability and movements in and out of poverty.

“The Service is therefore appealing to all selected households to accept, provide the needed assistance and volunteer the required information to the Field Officers for national development outcomes,” the service said.