THE YEAR-on-year inflation rate for May 2020 was 11.3%, 0.7 percentage points higher than the previous month’s rate.
A Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) report, which disclosed this, said the month-on-month inflation between April 2020 and May 2020 was 1.7%.
“This is lower than the 3.2% recorded between March and April 2020, but higher than the average month-on-month inflation recorded in the months October 2019 to March 2020 (0.7%),” Prof Samuel Annim, Government Statistician, commented.
According to him, “Ghana experienced a hike in the inflation rate of around 3.5 percentage points since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic,” adding that in the Western, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions food inflation surged.
At the regional level, he said, inflation ranged from 3.1% in the Upper East Region to 13.3% in the Greater Accra.
“When comparing food to non-food inflation, there are clear differences between regions. Ashanti (22.3%) and Western (19.8%) regions had the highest rates of food inflation, while Eastern Region saw the highest non-food inflation (12.8%).
The overall month-on-month inflation was between -1.5% in the Volta Region and 3.9% in the Ashanti Region. The Western Region recorded a month-on-month food inflation rate of 6.9%, while the Volta Region saw a decrease of -3.3%.
Greater Accra saw an overall month-on-month inflation of 0.7% and a Food month-on-month inflation of -0.4%.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 15.1%. This is 0.7 percentage point higher than April 2020 (14.4%) and 7.2 percentage points higher than the average over the eight months preceding March 2020 (7.9%). This translates to food being the predominant driver of year-on-year inflation. Food contributed 58.6% of the year-on-year inflation in April 2020.
Month-on-month food inflation stood at 2.3%, which is less than the 6.4% that was recorded between March 2020 and April 2020. The division with the highest month-on-month inflation between April and March 2020 was Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (4.3%).
Within the Food Division, Vegetables (34.9%) and Fruits and Nuts (21.5%) were the subclasses with the highest rates of inflation. For the Housing Division, the subclasses, Rents Paid by Tenants (21.0%) and Refuse Collection (48.9%) recorded the highest inflation rates. Month-on-month transport inflation was negative due to the month-on-month price indices decreases for Diesel (-10.9%) and Petrol (-8.7%).
BY Samuel Boadi
