Help tame inflation - Government Statistician to policymakers

Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, has entreated policymakers to outline solutions to address high inflation in the country.

Touching on food inflation, he said government can ride on its Planting for Food and Jobs policy to boost the production capacity of local farmers; especially those cultivating onions, tomatoes, fish, among other commodities that are mostly scarce on the market.

The shortage of goods on the market, he said, was a contributory factor to the hike in price.

“There are about 20 items in the inflation basket whose individual aggregate contribution is always almost one per cent or slightly above one per cent,” he told the Graphic Business in an interview.

Below is Ghana’s inflation trend in the last quarter of 2022 and 2023:

This article was initially published on December 31, 2023.

In 2022, Ghana’s inflation began an upward trend after the country’s debt woes started. Coupled with the depreciation of the cedi, inflation kept rising to an all-time high of above 50%.

Ghana recorded an inflation rate of 54.1% in December 2022 and fell marginally to 53.6% from 54.1% in January 2023.

It dropped slightly in February to 52.8% and continued the downward trend in March.

The Ghana Statistical Service announced that inflation for March 2023 dropped to 45%.

This would be the third consecutive decline that the country would witness after marginal declines were recorded in January and February 2023.

On a month-on-month basis, the GSS said the difference in inflation between February 2023 and March 2023 was -1.2 percent while food inflation was pegged at 50.8 percent from 59.1 percent recorded in February.

In April, inflation dropped to 41.2% but increased marginally in May 2023 by some 1%.

The rate recorded was 42.2%. This increased to 42.5% in June 2023 and increased to 43.1%.

But things took a different turn in August when inflation began its downward trend.

The country recorded a 40.1% rate in August 2023 eased to 38.1% in September and reduced further to 35.2% for October 2023.

In November, Ghana's inflation dropped to 26.4% from 35.2% in October 2023.

SA/NOQ