ACCRA: Ghana’s inflation quickened to 19 percent in January from 17.7 percent recorded the previous month due to increases in utility tariffs and fuel prices, it was revealed on Wednesday.
The country’s utility regulator approved a 59.2 percent increase in electricity tariffs and an 89 percent rise in water charges. Oil marketing companies also pegged ex-pump prices at 27 per cent in January, stimulating upward adjustment in public transport costs by 15 percent.
The Ghana Statistical Service said the “non-food inflation rate (25.5 percent) is more than three times higher than the food inflation rate (8.2 percent).” Some of the main price drivers for the non-food inflation rate were housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels contributing about 45.5 percent while transport added 30.8 percent.
The price drivers for the food inflation rate were coffee, tea and cocoa, mineral water, soft drinks, fruit and vegetable juices, sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery, food products and vegetables. Imports accounted for 18.7 percent inflation compared to 18.3 percent registered in December, while that of locally produced items was 19.1 percent as against 17.5 percent for the same period.
Ghana’s inflation rate averaged 17.13 percent from 1998 until 2016 but reached an all-time high of 63 percent in March of 2001 before tumbling to a record low of 0.40 percent in May 1999. Before the increases in electricity and water tariffs, Ghana Statistical Service boss Philomena Nyarko had warned that they would have a negative impact on inflation.
“We are talking about utility and fuel prices, taxes, rent and all others, so the influence of utility hike reflect in high price of things, then we may as a country see high inflation rates so the policymakers will have to find a way of bringing down some of these tariffs and taxes so that the common man could have some form of relief,” Nyarko said last year.
