The year-on-year inflation for April 2022 has surged to 23. 6 per cent compared to 19. 4 recorded in March this year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.
According to the GSS, the rise is a 4.2 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in March.
The Government Statistician, Prof.Samuel KobinaAnnim, saidthis at a press conference in Accra yesterday.
He attributed the increase in inflation to high cost of food prices which is the highest since January 2004.
He said month-on-month inflation from March 2022 to April 2022 was 5.1 per cent.
According to Prof.Annim, four divisions, namely transport (33.5 per cent), house equipment, Routine maintenance (28.5per cent) and food and non-alcoholic beverages (25.6 per cent) , and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels (25.0 per cent) recorded inflation rate above the national average of 23. 6 per cent.
He mentioned that the food inflation for April 2022 which was 26.6 per cent was higher than both last month’s food inflation of 22. 4 per cent and the average of the previous 12 months of 13.5 per cent.
“Food inflation’s contribution to the total inflation however, decreased from 51.4 per cent in March 2022 to 50.0 per cent in April 2022,” he said.
The Government Statistician said all 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with fruit and vegetable juices recording the highest of 15.3 per cent.
He indicated that non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in April 2022 compared to March 2022 from 17.0 per cent 21.3 per cent adding that only one out of the 12 non-food divisions had the12 months rolling average to be higher than that of April.
For imported goods, Prof. Annim said inflation rate was 24.7 while that of locally produced items was 23.0 per cent adding that “this is the first time in 29 months that inflation for imported items exceeded domestic inflation.
At the regional level, he stated that, theoverall inflation ranged from 18.4 per cent in the Upper East Region to 26.7 per cent in the CentralRegion.
He mentioned that Central Region had again recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 8.8 per cent adding that all regions recorded positive month-month inflation rate in April 2022.
BY JEMIMA ESINAM KUATSINU