Continuous increase in food, transport prices push April inflation to 23.6%

The continuous increase in food and transport prices across the country has pushed the national year-on-year inflation for April 2022 to 23.6 percent.

This was captured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the Ghana Statistical Service.

The rate is 4.2 percentage points higher than the 19.4% recorded in March 2022.

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

A statement issued by the Ghana Statistical Service noted that “four divisions – transport (33.5%); household equipment and routine maintenance (28.5%); food and non-alcoholic beverages (25.6%), and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (25.0%) recorded inflation rates above the national average of 23.6% with transport recording the highest inflation.”

National month-on-month inflation from March 2022 to April 2022 was 5.1%.

It also noted that this is the first time in 29 months that inflation for imported items exceeded domestic inflation. Whilst inflation for locally produced items was 23.0%, inflation for imported items was 24.7%.

“The inflation for imported goods is higher than the 17.3% recorded for March 2022 while the inflation for locally produced items is 23.0% higher than the 20.0% recorded in March 2022.”

Food and Non-food Inflation

Whilst Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages inflation was 26.6%, Non-Food inflation stood at 21.3%.

April 2022’s food inflation of 26.6% is higher than both food inflation for March 2022 (22.4%) and the average of the previous 12 months (13.5%).

Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation, however, decreased from 51.4% in March 2022 to 50.0% in April 2022.

All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with Fruit and Vegetable Juices recording the highest of 15.3%.

Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in April 2022 compared to March 2022, which is from 17.0% to 21.3%. Only one out of the 12 Non-food Divisions had the 12 months rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for April 2022 for the divisions. Transport is the Division that recorded the highest inflation in April 2022 (33.5%).

Regional Inflation

At the regional level, the Central Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 26.7% while the Upper East Region recorded the lowest inflation rate of 18.4%.

The Central Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 8.8%.