Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper is urging Ghana to brace for economic shocks as fears grow over a possible rise in petroleum prices linked to escalating tensions involving Iran.

Speaking on PM Express Business Edition on Joy News recently, he warned that crises are inevitable in any economy and must be anticipated rather than ignored.

His comments come amid mounting concerns that instability in the Middle East could drive up global crude oil prices, with direct implications for fuel costs and inflation in Ghana.

If you don’t have sufficient food, and you import with the reserves, it affects the currency. So these are, if not something you can predict to the letter, is something you should know could happen, he said.

He stressed that such vulnerabilities are not new and should form part of long-term planning.

So, unless you prepare against them, events happen, and things go in circles. Commodity prices, we don’t control them. They go up, and they go down. This will appear.

Mr Terkper pointed to the cyclical nature of global markets, warning that Ghana cannot afford to be caught off guard when shocks hit.

And I’ve always said, in so many interviews, that you cannot run an economy for two to three years, the longest, four, without one crisis or the other. It may be domestic, it may be external…

He added that economists have long recognised this pattern and have developed tools to manage it.

Economists have something called counter cyclical policies, it means that you know that the economy rises and falls and it settles, it’s good and band, good and bad.

His remarks highlight the urgency for Ghana to strengthen buffers and adopt policies that can cushion the economy against external shocks, especially at a time when global uncertainties threaten to push up fuel prices and strain the cedi.