Inflation goes up

Global inflationary trend which has been on the rise since the beginning of the year, has replicated itself in Ghana with inflation for April 2008 being 15.29 percent- a 1.5 percent increase over the previous month's figure.

The impact is mostly due to rising prices of food, causing a shortage in most parts of the world and the volatile crude oil price. Inflation for March 2008 was 13.79 percent.

According to figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service, April inflation was triggered mainly by the non-food and food groups as was the case in March.

While the food group contributed 5.94 percentage points to the inflation, the non-food inflation added 9.53 percentage points.

The twice reviewed prices in petroleum products made the transport sub group the highest contributor with 1.75 points.

Within the non-food group, hotels, cafes and restaurants as well as household goods, operations and services also contributed significantly to the change, adding 1.36 and 1.30 points.

The surge in hotel, cafe and restaurant prices were mainly due to the 12th UNCTAD conference that took place last month where there were a lot of foreigners in the country.

Once again, communications did not see any change in price for seven months running but education saw a slight change of 0.29 points. Housing and utilities contributed 1.23 points.

With regard to food inflation, oils and fats, bread and cereals as well as fish sub group contributed 1.62, 1.62 and 1.27 points to April inflation.

The figures showed that the national index for food, which accounts for roughly half of the goods used to compute the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased from 10.46 percent to 10.98 percent.

Also, the national index for non-food inflation increased to 13.23 percent, from 12.79 percent.

Commenting on the reasons behind the continuous rise, Dr. Grace Bediako, Government Statistician said the increase was influenced partly by external shocks, adding that much more analysis would have to be conducted to identify where the forces driving inflation was coming from.

She explained that her outfit will have to work hand-in-hand with policy makers and analysts to come out with measures that at least could help contain the hike.

For the regions, Greater Accra recorded the least inflation of 11.35 percent followed by the Brong Ahafo with 11.50 percent. The Ashanti region followed suit recording an inflation of 11.73 percent.

The Volta, Upper, Central and Western regions recorded inflation of 16.00, 18.99, 19.68 and 20.64 percent respectively.

On the other hand, Eastern and Northern regions remained the regions with the highest inflation recording rates of 22.21 percent and 22.63 percent respectively.

Source: Daily Guide