Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta says Ghana’s rising inflation is beyond the government’s control since several factors have contributed to that.
He indicated that Ghana is not the only one affected but other African countries are also affected.
The Minister said global inflation has risen and that Ghana’s case is not an exception.
According to him, 41 African countries are currently exposed to the same crisis Ghana faces. These crises he mentioned are “rising food prices, rising energy prices, tightening financial conditions”.
He was addressing a press conference on Thursday, May 12, 2022.
“Today, 41 African economies are severely exposed to, at least, one of three concurrent crises, rising food prices, rising energy prices, tightening financial conditions Finance Ministers now call it the dreaded three Fs; food, fuel, and financial conditions.”
“That is just a ripple through in all Africa, and food prices easily about 34 per cent higher, crude oil prices some 60 per cent higher, and global inflation has risen; we saw our numbers yesterday moved to 23.6 per cent, a good chunk of it being imported inflation.”
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday, May 11, released the April inflation rate.
It said 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.
According to the GSS, four divisions – Transport (33.5%); Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance (28.5%); Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (25.6%), and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels (25.0%) recorded inflation rates above the national average of 23.6% with Transport recording the highest inflation.
National month-on-month inflation from March 2022 to April 2022 was 5.1%.
Whilst Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages inflation was 26.6%, Non-Food inflation stood at 21.3%.
For Non-Food inflation, 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 months rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for April 2022.
Furthermore, the inflation for imported goods was 24.7% higher than the 17.3% recorded for March 2022, while the inflation for locally produced items was 23.0%, up from the 20.0% recorded in March 2022. This is the first time in 29 months that inflation for imported items exceeded domestic inflation.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
