Story by: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
The Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta has said that Ghana is not the only country on the globe facing harsh economic conditions.
According to him, several economies in the world are faced with severe food, fuel, and financial problems.
Addressing the media at the Minister’s ‘Meet the Press‘ series at the Information Services Department Conference room in Accra on Thursday, May 12, 2022, he said, “Today, 41 African economies are severely exposed to, at least, one of three concurrent crises, rising food prices, rising energy prices.
That is just a ripple through in all of Africa, and food prices are easily about 34 percent higher, crude oil prices some 60 percent higher, and global inflation has risen, we saw our numbers yesterday moved to 23.6 percent, a good chunk of it being imported inflation,” he noted.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) announced on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, that the national year-on-year inflation rate was 23.6% in April 2022, which is 4.2 percentage points higher than the 19.4% recorded in March 2022.
The month-on-month inflation between March 2022 and April 2022 was 5.1%, the GSS said on Wednesday, May 12, 2022
Four Divisions, Transport, Household Equipment, and Routine Maintenance, Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels, recorded inflation rates above the national average of 23.6% with Transport, 33.5%, recording the highest inflation.
This month’s food inflation, 26.6%, is higher than last month’s food inflation, 22.4%, and the average of the previous 12 months was 13.5%. Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation, however, decreased from 51.4% in March 2022 to 50.0% in April 2022.
Overall month-on-month food inflation was 5.8%, which is higher than both the twelve-month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation (2.0%) and the rate recorded for April 2021 (2.3%). All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation (see figure 4) with Fruit and Vegetable Juices recording the highest (15.3%).
Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in April 2022 compared to March 2022 (from 17.0% to 21.3%). Only one out of the 12 Non-food Divisions had the 12-month 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%).
At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 18.4% in the Upper East Region to 26.7% in the Central Region (See Figure 3). Central Region again recorded the highest month-on-month inflation (8.8%). All regions recorded positive month-on-month inflation rate in April 2022 (above 2.0%).
