The Ghana Statistical Service announced last Wednesday that the country’s inflation rate climbed to 25.8 percent year on year in March after it eased to 23.2 percent in February.
Samuel Kobina Annim, the government statistician, said at a monthly briefing that the higher inflation in March was due to the higher food and non-food inflation rates.
Compared to February, food inflation increased by 2.6 percentage points to 29.6 percent in March, while non-food inflation also increased by 2.6 percentage points to 22.6 percent, he noted.
“Vegetables, tubers, and plantains made the most contribution to the rise in food inflation in March, while transportation, including petroleum prices, made the highest contribution to the rise in non-food prices,” Annim stated.
Meanwhile, the official said inflation for locally produced and imported items stood at 26.6 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively.
At its last two sittings in January and March, the Monetary Policy Committee of Ghana’s central bank, the Bank of Ghana, stayed its benchmark policy rate of 29 percent to demonstrate a strong policy stance and sustain the path of disinflation.
The Ghanaian economy has experienced severe challenges in recent years, coupled with soaring inflation, fluctuating currency, escalating public debt, and rising living costs.
The Ghanaian government secured the 3-billion-dollar loan from the IMF in May last year, hoping to steer the economy toward recovery.
The government has so far drawn down 1.2 billion dollars from the loan in two tranches.