Current high inflation partly due to steep decline of cedi – Financial Analyst

Financial analyst with GCB Capital, Courage Boti, has said the consistent cedi depreciation against major currencies is part of the main drivers of the soaring inflation.

Ghana’s inflation rate has jumped to 40.4 per cent for the month of October 2022.

Month-on-month inflation between September and October 2022 was 2.7%, Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim told reporters in Accra.

This was triggered by the continuous increases in prices of food, housing, transport, water, electricity, gas and other fuels among others.

However, speaking on Starr Today with Naa Dede Tetteh, the financial analyst said the increased inflation figures at the end of October are due to several happenings like Russia-Ukraine war, transport fares mechanism among others.

“It just keeps getting worse and worse by the day but it is not a surprise at all. You look at the fact that food inflation is the main driver now. Particularly given that we are in the year you will call the harvest year which means food has an impact on inflation.

“The transport mechanism, the prices of oil, crude oil prices and by extension prices of petroleum. Then of course the transport fares and things related all might have affected the distribution of some of these food items to the various market centers. These are the reason we see prices elevated,” he said.

Mr. Boti however added that the cedi depreciation has not had a good effect on Ghana’s inflation and the economy.

“Over the period also you realize that there has been some 27 and 21 increase in electricity and water tariffs which took effect from September. It also has an effect on the inflation rate and then you also saw from the period September, October, the cedi depreciation was very elevated. Within that period alone over 27% depreciation. All of these would have played a role in the current inflation figure we are seeing for the month of October so it’s not surprising,” he explained.