Food, fuel prices push inflation rate to 15.7% in February 2022

Ghana’s inflation rate has once again risen to hit 15.7 percent in February 2022.

This represents a 1.8 percent jump in the inflation rate compared to the 13.9 percent recorded in the first month of this year.

The current rate is the highest recorded since the rebasing of the CPI and inflation in August 2019.

This new rise in the inflation rate confirms predictions by economists and stakeholders that prices of fuel and food will continue to rise following tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

Already, Ghanaians are bearing the effect of the tensions on the price of fuel, which in turn has led to an increase in transport fares.

According to data from the Ghana Statistical Service, the 15.7 percent increase in February 2022 was mainly influenced by housing, water, electricity and gas (25.4%); transport (18.3%) as well as food and non-alcoholic beverages (17.4%).

Food and Non-Food Inflation

Food inflation regained its dominance, recording 17.4 percent year-on-year inflation, as against the 13.7 percent recorded in the previous month, all above a national average of 15.7 percent.

This month’s food inflation (17.4%) is higher than both last month food inflation (13.7%) and the average of the previous 12 months (10.8%). ‘

Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation increased from 44.2% in January 2022 to 49.4% in February 2022.

Overall month-on-month food inflation was 3.2%, which is higher than both the twelve-month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation (1.3%) and the rate recorded for February 2021 (0.0%).

All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation, with water recording the highest (9.0%).

Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in February 2022 compared to January 2022 (from
14.1% to 14.5%).

Only one out of the 12 Non-food Divisions had the 12-month rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for February 2022 for the divisions.

Regional Inflation

At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 11.6% in the Western Region to 19.5% in
the Greater Accra Region.

Eastern Region recorded the highest month-on-month inflation (7.3%) while Upper East region recorded a negative month-on-month inflation rate in February 2022 (-0.9%).

Source: CitiBusinessNews