Rent and Transport associated prices push inflation to almost 14%

Asignificant increase in prices associated with Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuel (28.7%), as well as Transport (17.4%), has pushed the rate of inflation for January 2022 to 13.9 percent.

This is captured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for January 2022, released by the Ghana Statistical Service.

The rate is 1.3 percentage points higher than the 12.6% recorded in December 2021.

The rise in the inflation rate for January 2022 is the highest recorded since the Ghana Statistical Service rebased the Consumer Price Index in August 2019.

Speaking at a press conference, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Annim highlighted the impact that the increases in core influencers had on the increase in the overall inflation rate for the first month of 2022.

“Month-on-month, that is December 2021 to January 2022, inflation was 2.1%. For the first time in seven months, non-food inflation exceeded food inflation (14.1% versus 13.7% respectively). On a month-on-month basis, non-food inflation also exceeds food inflation this month by 0.2 percentage points (2.2% vs. 2.0%),” he noted.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service, food inflation recorded a rate of 13.7%, higher than both last month’s rate (12.8%) and the average of the previous months (10.4%).

Non-food inflation on the other hand, went up again in January 2022 to 14.1%, compared with the 12.5% recorded in December 2021.

Also, the inflation for imported goods was 11.0%, higher than the 10.4% recorded in December 2021, while the inflation for locally produced items was 15.0%, up from the 13.3% recorded in December 2021.

Regional disaggregation for inflation

The Greater Accra region recorded the highest rate of inflation of 18.4%, far higher than the national average.

It was followed by Upper West (15.6%) and Northern (15.1%). The Ashanti region however registered an inflation rate of 13.6%.

The Eastern region registered the lowest inflation rate of 6.9%.

The region that recorded the highest food inflation was Upper West with a rate of 24.7%. On the other hand, Eastern region recorded the lowest food inflation rate of 4.7%.

For non-food inflation, Upper West registered the lowest inflation rate of 6.6%, whilst Greater Accra region recorded the highest rate of inflation of 22.2%

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the changes in the price of a fixed basket of goods and services that households in Ghana consume. The said basket which contains food and non-food items helps in appreciating the average price levels in the country.