Prof. Samuel Annim
THE NATIONAL year-on-year inflation rate was 10.6% in September 2021, which is 0.9 percentage point higher than the 9.7% recorded in August 2021.
Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Annim, who made this known to the media, said month-on-month inflation between August and September 2021 was 0.6% (0.3 percentage points higher than what was recorded in August 2021).
‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other
Fuels’ (18.7%) recorded the highest inflation for the inflation rates of all divisions.
He said the food inflation which stood at 11.5% was higher than last month’s 10.9% and just above the average of the previous 12 months.
However, the contribution of food to total inflation dropped from 50.2% last month to 48.6% in September adding that overall, month-on-month food inflation was 0.0%, which was lower than the twelfth month national average month-on-month inflation.
Vegetables, coffee and coffee substitutes, and cereal products were the only subclass that recorded a negative month-on-month inflation.
Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up in September compared to the previous month (from 8.7% to 9.9%).
Out of the 13 division, six had higher year-on-year inflation in September 2021 than the rolling average over the last 12 months.
Meanwhile an economist with Databank, Courage Martey, has indicated that the rising level of inflation, if unchecked, could impact the purchasing power of Ghanaians.
For four months in a row, the rate of inflation has witnessed an increase.
After dropping from 10.3% in February this year to 9.9% and 8.5% in March and April respectively, the rate dropped further to 7.5% in May. It has since then increased constantly through June, July, August and September, driven mainly by increases in food prices and other factors.
Speaking to Citi Business News, Mr Martey, expressed concern over the impact of rising inflation on disposable income and interest rates.
“Inflation is generally an erosion of your purchasing power. With an increase in the inflation rate, you would either need more money to buy the same item or buy less with the same amount of money you had last year. So disposable income has been reduced as it stands for consumers, and it is only a matter of time that standard of living will also be negatively impacted,” he said.