As Ghana struggles with COVID-19, inflation rate for June stands at 11.2%

As Ghana struggles with rising infections of COVID-19, the country’s year-on-year inflation rate for the month of June is 11.2 per cent, just down 0.1 per cent from the rate in May.

Economists around the world have made grim projections of the impact of the viral pandemic on the economies of countries around the world. For instance, China is projected to grow at 1 per cent and Europe will contract at 5 per cent and these are expected to spiral to countries in Africa.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) Month-on-month inflation between May 2020 and June 2020 was 1 per cent.

This is lower than the1.7 per cent recorded between April and May and 3.2 per cent between March and April 2020, but higher than the average month-on-month inflation recorded in the months October 2019 to March 2020 – 0.7 per cent.

Only two of the thirteen Divisions had higher than average inflation rates; Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (21.3 per cent) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (13.8 per cent), it said.

At the regional level, the GSS says the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 4.3 per cent in the Upper West Region and Volta Region to 15.0 per cent in Greater Accra.

In all, but Greater Accra, Northern Region, and Upper East, Food inflation was higher than Non-Food Inflation. Especially in Western Region (21.3 per cent Food inflation compared to 7.4 per cent Non-Food inflation) and Ashanti (20.6% per cent Food inflation and 5.4 per cent Non-Food inflation).

“We see large differences between the Food and Non-Food inflation. The overall month-on-month inflation was between -2.2 per cent in the Upper West Region and 2.5 per cent in Greater Accra,” the GSS said, adding, “Ashanti Region, which saw the highest month-on-month inflation between April and May 2020 (3.9 per cent), had a negative (-0.6 per cent) month-on-month inflation between May and June 2020. Overall, Regions with high month-on-month inflation between April and May 2020, saw lower month-on-month inflation this month, and vice versa,” it indicated.

Meanwhile, the country is recording high numbers in the infection rate of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). With the latest reported infection rate of 264 in the last 24 hours, the country’s total number of infections is 25, 252 since the country first announced its first two cases on March 12, 2020.

With 139 deaths, there are 21,397 recoveries.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi