Inflation for May 2024 has seen a substantial decline, dropping to 23.1% from 25.0% in April 2024, marking a 1.9 percentage point reduction.
The Ghana Statistical Service attributes this overall decrease to a reduction in food inflation, which fell to 22.6% from 26.8% the previous month.
Conversely, non-food inflation experienced a slight increase, rising to 23.6% in May 2024 from 23.5% in April 2024. Inflation rates for both locally produced and imported items also decreased, with locally produced items falling to 24.7% and imported items to 19.6%.
Addressing journalists in Accra, Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim emphasized the need for policymakers to address transportation costs, which saw a month-on-month inflation rate of 10.5%, rather than focusing solely on food inflation as the main driver of the overall inflation rate.
“In this case what I want the media and policymakers to engage is not food inflation but in this case, transport where we are seeing month-on-month transport inflation of 10.5% when overall month-on-month is 3.2% and we all do appreciate how transport permits across the other items that we have in the basket for the competition.
“So the conversation that I really wish will be on the table going forward is how do we ensure that the consistent but slow increases in prices of food at other points would slow down and possibly see reduction going forward.”