Ghana’s Inflation rate which was single digit over the past eight months has increased to double digits in April 2020 over Pandemic COVID -19.
The year-on-year inflation rate for April rose sharply to 10. 6 percent as the effect of the three-week lockdown following the coronavirus confirmed cases bites.
The rate increased by 2.8 percentage points from the 7.8 percent recorded in March, Professor Samuel Anim, Government Statistician, said at a press conference.
The average national inflation stood at 10.6 percent. Food inflation (14.4 percent) outpaced Non-food inflation (7.7 percent), especially in the two regions with areas which were under partial COVID-19 lockdown, Greater Accra 20.8 percent, and Ashanti.18.2 percent.
The Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 14.4 percent, six percentage points higher than March 2020 at 8.4 percent, and 6.5 percentage points higher than the average Food inflation rate recorded in the previous eight months of 7.9 percent.
“This translates to Food being the predominant driver of year-on-year inflation. Food contributed 59.6 percent of the year-on-year inflation in April 2020,” Prof Anim said.
In the previous eight months, the contribution was on average 44.1 percent.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
