Ghana’s inflation for August 2022 has reached 33.9 percent, the highest since August 2001.
This new inflation rate also represents a 2.2 percentage points increase over that of July 2022, which stood at 31.7%.
This was announced by the Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Annim at a press conference on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, when he gave a breakdown of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Inflation for 2022.
Food inflation for August 2022 was 34.4 percent as against 32.3 percent in July 2022, while non-food inflation was 33.6 percent in August 2022 as against 31.3 percent in July of the same year.
Year-on-year inflation for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels had the highest inflation rate recorded at 46.7 percent with transport recording the second highest at 45.7 percent.
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) however show that the country recorded its lowest month-on-month rate of inflation for 2022 at 1.9 percent from 3.1 percent in July.
Inflation for locally produced items was marginally lower than that for imported items, with 33.4 percent and 35.2 percent respectively.
This would be the fifth month running since the prices of imported goods will increase more than that of domestic goods, largely due to the depreciating cedi.
Business owners say they are being pushed out of business as the local currency continues to lose its value against the US dollar.
At the regional level, the Eastern Region recorded the highest inflation of 41 per cent while the Upper East Region registered the lowest rate of 22.8 per cent.
Inflation basket
The Consumer Price Index measures changes in the price of a fixed basket of goods and services purchased by households.
Prices are collected for approximately 39,500 products every month from 44 markets.
Products are ordered in a hierarchy of 13 divisions, 44 groups, 98 classes, 156 subclasses and 307 items.
