The Ghana Statistical Service is projecting that inflation rate will be slowing down in the coming months.
Government statistician Prof Kwabena Anim in at a press conference in Accra said despite increase in inflation rate for April, the coming months are likely to see a drop in the rate.
Prof Kwabena Anim attributed this projection to the ease in mobility restrictions in the country.
"We want to believe that this is likely to go down because of the ease in mobility restriction but we do not expect a sharp drop as we saw in terms of the surge in prices so it is going to take at least three months for us to see the effect of the ease in mobility restriction and how it will impact on the inflation rate of the 10.6 that we recorded for April 2020."
On the way forward to meet the projections, Government statistician Prof Kwabena Anim said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture should focus on making sure there is enough supply of cassava, okro, plantain and tomatoes to markets that saw a sharp increase in the prices of these food items
"In terms of advice on what we should do moving forward and these are my personal thoughts is for us to take a clue from the items that we see us having high prices and begin to ask ourselves whether we can sort of abate the market demand and supply. One of the things the Ministry of Food and Agriculture can focus on is how to ensure that the supply of commodities such as Cassava, Okro, plantain, tomatoes are available in markets that we saw very high prices."
Ghana’s inflation rate for the month of April 2020 has risen to 10.6 per cent, 2.8 percentage points higher than the month of March. This is the highest since the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was rebased in August 2019.
It should be noted that the data for the CPI and rate of inflation was collected during the partial lockdown that was enforced in the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi areas from March 30 to April 20, 2020 as parts of measures to curb the global pandemic that has infected more than four million people in the world, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In Ghana as at May 14, 5,408 people have been infected by the disease. The Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions have the highest infection rates. Accra recorded 4,147 and Ashanti recorded 726.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service, month-on-month inflation between March and April was 3.2 per cent.
“These are highest recorded year-on-year and month-on-month inflation rates since the CPI rebasing in August of last year. Only two of the thirteen divisions had higher than average inflation rates, food and non-alcoholic beverages (14.4 per cent) and housing, water, electricity, and gas (11.2 per cent),