Inflation for January increases to 13.9%

Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim has said the national year-on-year inflation rate for January 2022 was 13.9 percent in January which is 1.3 percentage points higher than the 12.6 percent recorded in December 2021.

He again said the month-on-month inflation between December 2021 and January 2022 was 2.1 percent, adding that, two divisions such as Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels, and Transport recorded inflation rates above the national average of 13.9 percent with Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels recording the highest inflation of 28.7 percent.

“For the first time in seven months non-food inflation on a Year-on-Year basis surpasses food inflation and the main driver was Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels” the Government Statistician said.

On the regional inflation, the Government Statistician explained that the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 6.9% in the Eastern Region to 18.4% in the
Greater Accra Region.

Greater Accra Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 5.0% whiles the Upper West region recorded a negative month-on-month inflation rate in January 2022 of -1.0%.

Prof. Annim further said Food and Non-Food Inflation for this month’s food inflation is 13.7 percent higher than both last month food inflation of 12.8 percent whiles the average of the previous 12 months was 10.4 percent.

“Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation decreased marginally from 45.2 percent in December 2021 to 44.2 percent in January 2022”, he added.

He again said the overall month-on-month food inflation was 2.0 percent which is higher than the twelve-month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation 1.1 percent, stating that, fourteen out of the fifthteen food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with Fruit and Vegetable juices recording a deflation of -0.4 percent.

According to him, the Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up
again in January 2022 compared to December 2021 from 12.5 percent to 14.1 percent.

He continued that two out of 12 Non-food Divisions had 12 months rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for January 2022 for the divisions Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels recorded the highest inflation 28.7 percent in January 2022.

“Greater Accra region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 5.0 percent for January 2022”, he noted.

On Imported and Local Inflation, he noted that inflation imported goods was 11.0 percent which is higher than the 10.4 percent recorded for December 2021 while
the inflation for locally produced items was 15.0 percent which is up from 13.3 percent recorded in December 2021.

On summary, Prof. Annim indicated that the National inflation from January 2021 to January 2022 was 13.9 percent, national month-on-month inflation from December 2021 to January 2022 was 2.1 percent, Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages inflation was 13.7 percent and Non-Food inflation 14.1 percent and the Regional inflation was between 18.4 percent in Greater Accra region and 6.9 percent in the Eastern Region.

Source: africaneditors.com/ Eric Nii Sackey