Ghana’s inflation for September 2022 surges to 37.2 % from 33.9% in August, hitting its highest barely a week after the Bank of Ghana (BoG) increased the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 250 basis points, translating to 24.5% from 22% in August.
A shot up by 3.3% to 37.2% in the month of September is against 33.9% recorded in August 2022, the Ghana Statistical Service has revealed.
According to the GSS, Food and Non-alcoholic beverages were the major drivers of the September 2022 inflation.
Just this month, The World Bank’s Food Price Index in Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa ranked Ghana as number one with the highest food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022.
Senegal followed closely with food price increases of 110 percent.
According to the Bretton Woods institution’s October 2022 Africa Pulse Report, food prices have since January 1, 2022, been going up by 122 percent in Ghana.
Since the start of 2022, food prices have increased worldwide, which some attribute to the Russian/Ukraine war.
Food inflation in Ghana has been high, recording year-on-year inflation of 34.4 percent in August 2022.
The drivers of food inflation in Ghana contained in GSS inflation report in August included Oils and Fats (67%); Fish and Other Seafood (42.9%); Water (42%); Cereal products (40%); Milk, Diary Products and Eggs (39.7%), Fruits and Vegetable Juices (37.7%) and Live Animals and Meat (34.5%). All of the items recorded inflation rates higher than the national average of 33.9%.
Overall, the World Bank said. inflation breached the ceiling of the central bank target bands for all countries with an explicit nominal anchor.
The implementation of the utility tariff in September 2022 may also have influenced the surge in inflation.
Prior to the announcement of the September 2022 inflation, the BoG adjustment of the policy rate to 22% in August and subsequently 24.5 in September to help fight inflation did not yield much as some analysts argued the increasing rate of inflation is largely supply driven.
Background
Ghana’s inflation for August 2022 rose to 33.9 percent from 31.7% in July, hitting its highest since August 2001 just weeks after the largest lending rate hike in the country’s history.
Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Annim announced this at a press conference on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, when he gave a breakdown of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Inflation for 2022.
source: tradingeconomics.com
Prof Annim noted that the inflation rate for August was mainly driven by transport and utilities.
Food inflation for August 2022 was 34.4 percent as against 32.3 percent in July 2022, while non-food inflation was 33.6 percent in August 2022 as against 31.3 percent in July of the same year.
Year-on-year inflation for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels had the highest inflation rate recorded at 46.7 percent with transport recording the second highest at 45.7 percent.
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) however show that the country recorded its lowest month-on-month rate of inflation for 2022 at 1.9 percent from 3.1 percent in July.
Regional breakdown
Western Region recorded the highest food inflation (47.0%) and Eastern Region, had the highest non-food inflation (42.0%).
The Eastern Region recorded the overall highest inflation (41.0%) with the Upper East Region recording the least rate of inflation at 22.8%.
Transport (68.7%) recorded the highest rate of inflation in the Eastern Region, and for food inflation in the Western Region, Fish and Other Seafood had the highest rate of inflation at 64.0%.