High food inflation rate due to distributional challenges, not production – Gov’t statistician
Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim, has opined that the identified trend of continuous high food inflation in the country may be due to distributional and challenges and not necessarily production challenges.
Making the assertion during an interview on PM Express monitored by norvanreports, the Economist and Statistician, noted that inefficiencies in the stages between food production from farmlands to consumption of food by citizens are riddled with challenges that tend to contribute to high food inflation in the country, citing transportation and storage as an instance.
“If you are not tackling challenges between production (food) and the point where it reaches consumers, you will have some these things happen.
“Production could be going up but what we could look at are the factors that affect productions before they get to the consumer and so for instance transportation and storage.
“And so for all you know, Ghana’s challenges has to do with distributional challenges and not production,” he stated.
Prof. Anim’s assertion was in relation to the view that inadequate food production in the country is a major contributory factor to high food prices on the Ghanaian market despite the numerous policies outlined by government to significantly increase food production.
This month’s food inflation (26.6%) is higher than both last month food inflation (22.4%) and the average of the previous 12 months (13.5%).
Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation, however, decreased from 51.4% in March 2022 to 50.0% in April 2022.
Overall month-on-month food inflation was 5.8%, which is higher than both the twelve month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation (2.0%) and the rate recorded for April 2021 (2.3%).
All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with Fruit and Vegetable Juices recording the highest (15.3%).
Non-food year-on-year inflation on average went up again in April 2022 compared to March 2022 (from 17.0% to 21.3%).
Only one out of the 12 non-food divisions had the 12 months rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for April 2022 for the divisions.
Regional inflation
At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation ranged from 18.4% in the Upper East Region to 26.7% in the Central Region.
Central Region again recorded the highest month-on-month inflation (8.8%).
All regions recorded positive month-on-month inflation rate in April 2022 (above 2.0%).
Imported and local inflation
The inflation for imported goods was 24.7% (which is higher than the 17.3% recorded for March 2022) while the inflation for locally produced items was 23.0% (up from the 20.0% recorded in March 2022).
Inflation reaches 23.6% in April
Headline inflation rate for the month April 2022 was 23.6%
Compared to that of the previous month, headline inflation is 4.2 percentage points higher than the 19.4% recorded in March 2022.
The month-on-month inflation between March 2022 and April 2022 was 5.1%.
Four divisions (Transport, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance, Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels) recorded inflation rates above the national average of 23.6% with Transport (33.5% ) recording the highest inflation for the inflation rates of all divisions).
