ACCRA: Ghana’s annual consumer price inflation rose to 19.2 percent in March from 18.5 percent in February, pushed up by road transport fare increases, the statistics office said on Wednesday.
A major commodities exporter, the West African country is implementing a three-year aid programme with the International Monetary Fund in an attempt to remedy fiscal problems including inflation persistently above government targets. Road transport operators in Ghana announced a 15 percent hike in fares in late February.
“Fares are linked to almost all market activities and locally produced goods and any change in those fares tends to have a direct impact on consumer prices,” government statistician Philomena Nyarko told a press conference in Accra. For Razia Khan, Standard Chartered Bank’s chief economist for Africa, the rise in inflation was a “disappointing outcome”.
“There had been some hope that tight policy and relative (currency) stability would start to bring about an improvement in inflation”, she said in an email sent to Reuters. “Our view is that the CPI print is more likely to mean that it will be some time before the BoG (Bank of Ghana) can comfortably ease the policy rate, helping to bring the policy rate more in line with where market rates are”, she added.
Year-on-year food inflation remained unchanged at 8.3 percent compared to last month while non-inflation rose marginally to 25.7 percent from 24.5 percent the month before. Ghana’s new central bank governor said on Monday his top priority was to fight inflation, but he also wanted to pursue new policies to boost local business growth.
