Ghana’s Consumer Price Inflation accelerated to 27.6% year-on-year in May from 23.6% in April hitting a new 18-year high, the Statistical Service said on Wednesday, June 8, 2022.
This means that in the month of May 2022, the general price level was 27.6% higher than in May 2021 and more than double the government’s targeted band of 6% to 10%.
The Ghana Statistical Service figures also indicated that month-on-month inflation between April 2022 and May 2022 was 4.1%.
Disaggregation
The data also indicated that food inflation was up 30.1% from 26.6% last month and month-on-month food inflation was 4.0%. Per the data oils and fats, water, cereal products and fruit and vegetable juices have seen the largest increases in prices this year.
Non-food inflation was 25.7% up from 21.3% last month and month-on-month non-food inflation was 4.1%.
Inflation for locally produced items was 27.3 while that of imported items was 28.2%.
Outlook
Government Statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told reporters that a downtrend in food inflation in the coming months would be dependent on the availability of fertilizer and favourable rains.
If you look at the inflation figures, you would see the dominance of the food items, the expectation is that once we get into the harvest season and barring any other policy interventions that might counter the returns of the harvest, we are expecting to see a reversal of the increases in prices,” he said.
He said this was dependent on two caveats; the prices of non-food items affecting gains made from the harvest and price changes in the previous year.