Inflation for May has declined to 23.1% from 25.0% recorded in April 2024, representing a 1.9 percentage point decrease between April and May 2024.
In the latest data from the Ghana Statistical Service, food inflation contributed to the overall drop, recording a rate of 22.6% as compared to 26.8% in April.
The data further revealed that the non-food group recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 23.6 percent in May from 23.5% in April 2024, whereas inflation for locally produced items and imported items fell to 24.7% and 19.6%, respectively.
Government statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim has therefore urged policymakers to focus on transportation, which recorded month-on-month inflation of 10.5%, rather than on food inflation as a primary driver of inflation.
“In this case, what I want the media and policymakers to engage in is not food inflation but, in this case, transport, where we are seeing month-on-month transport inflation of 10.5% when overall month-on-month is 3.2%, and we all do appreciate how transport permits across the other items that we have in the basket for the competition.
“So the conversation that I really wish will be on the table going forward is: how do we ensure that the consistent but slow increases in food prices at other points slow down and possibly see a reduction going forward?”
–GSS
