Prof Samuel Annim
THE YEAR-on-year inflation rate for September was 10.4%, 0.1 percentage points lower than last month.
Month-on-month inflation between August 2020 and September 2020 was -0.2%.
Last month, the month-on-month inflation also was negative (- 0.4%).
On average month-on-month inflation between April and July 2020 was 0.9% while in the six months prior to Covid-19 month-on-month inflation rate was 0.7%.
Government Statistician Prof. Samuel Annim, who disclosed this in a release, said only two of the 13 divisions had higher than average inflation rates namely Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (20.3%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (11.2%).
At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 1.3% in the Upper West Region to 14.2% in Greater Accra.
Most regions recorded a lower year-on-year inflation in September compared to previous months and a low or negative month-on-month inflation rate.
Whereas the Upper West Region last month recorded the highest month-on-month inflation (3.4%), it recorded the lowest month-on-month inflation (-6.9%) of all regions.
In September, Volta Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 0.1%.
All regions with the exception of Greater Accra showed a negative month-on-month Food Inflation.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Division recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 11.2% and this was 0.2 percentage point lower than in August 2020 (11.4%).
Within the Food Division, Vegetables (18.9%) was the subclass with the highest rates of inflation. This was lower than in the previous months.
In contrast, month-on-month Food inflation was -.5%, with -3.9% for the Vegetables Subclass. Food contributed 47.6% to the total inflation and thus is still the predominant driver of year-on-year inflation. This percentage was, again, lower than the previous months and comparable to the contribution levels of Food to total inflation prior to Covid-19.
Non-Food inflation came in at 9.8% and month-on-month Non-Food inflation was 0.1%.
Health, Restaurants and Accommodation Services and Information and Communication, were three divisions that recorded higher month-on-month inflation rates between August and September 2020 than on average during the months of April to July 2020 and before Covid-19.
The Non-Food Subclasses with the lowest inflation were Life and Accident Insurance (-14.4%), Electricity (-35.5%) and Electric Appliances for Personal Care (-66.4%).
On the other side, the Non-Food Subclasses with the highest inflation were Refuse Collection (49.6%), Rents (40.1%) and Vehicle Maintenance and Drivers Lessons (34.1%).
BY Samuel Boadi