The latest report from the Ghana Statistical Service suggests that more than 50 percent of Ghanaian households nationwide insist that their economic situations compared to last year has worsened, but approximately 23 per cent of the respondents in the preliminary report revealed they are better off now than before, an indication that only a quarter had their economic situations improved over the past year.

According to Network Herald, observers believe that this could be a potential threat to claims by officials of the ruling government that the party has made substantial inroads in the rural areas where majority of the respondents was polled.

The survey, the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) conducted between 2002 and 2003 is a monitoring report, which uses a number of poverty correlates to provide reliable household welfare indicators.

Acting Government Statistician, Dr. Kweku Twum-Baah, said at the launch of a simplified version of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) document, that the data revealed interesting observations such as a significant wide difference between the urban and rural areas.