Ghana’s year-on-year inflation rate for April declined to 8.5 per cent from 10.3 in March, reverting the country back to the pre-pandemic COVID-19 inflation rate, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has announced.
This represents an 18 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in March, and a month-on-month change rate of 0.6 per cent, higher than the rate recorded in March.
Government Statistician, Professor K. Annim who announced this at a virtual news conference in Accra on Wednesday, indicated that the food sector drove the April inflation rate.
“April 2021 inflation was 8.5 per cent. This shows that the effect of price hikes recorded at the onset of COVID-19 was waning and inflation almost at the pre-covid rates,” he said.
The food inflation for April dropped to 6.5 per cent from 10.8 per cent in March, while the non-food inflation inched up from 10.2 per cent to 10.0 per cent in March.
Prof. Annim said food inflation was decreasing in its contribution to total inflation to 33.8 per cent, the lowest contribution observed since the Consumer Price Index basket was rebased in 2018.
He said fruits and nuts recorded negative month-on-month inflation rate of 0.4 per cent with water and cocoa drinks recording no change in month-on-month inflation, with vegetable recording the highest inflation rate of 6.4 per cent.
For the non-food sector, he said the housing drove the sector’s contribution to inflation at 25.0 per cent.
The Government Statistician stressed that inflation for locally produced goods fell to 8.7 per cent in April from 11.7 per cent in March this year.
However, he said inflation for imported items went to 7.4 per cent in April from 6.87 per cent in March.
At the regional level, Prof. Annim said the regional inflation was between 12.1 per cent in Greater Accra and 2.0 per cent in the Upper West Region.
