Inflation rate: Ghana Statistical Service keeps producing rubbish – Hanke
Professor of Applied Economics at the Johns Hopkins University Steve Hanke has accused the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) of churning out ‘rubbish’ relative to the rate of inflation.
Official figures released by the GSS indicated that inflation hit a record high of 54.1% in December last year.
This was up from the 40.4 per cent recorded in November same year.
The month-on-month inflation rate was at 3.8% in December 2022.
According to the figures, five divisions recorded inflation rates higher than the national average.
Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (82.34%); Furnishings, Household Equipment (71.52%); Transport (71.42%); Personal Care, Social Protection and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (60.94%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (59.71%).
Whilst Food inflation went up by 4.4% in December 2022, Non-Food Inflation went up to 49.9% in December 2022, from 46.5% in November 2022.
Inflation for locally produced items was 51.1% and inflation for imported items was 61.9%.
Eight sub-classes registered inflation rates higher then the food inflation average. They included Water (94.2%), Fruit and Vegetable Juices (84.6%), Milk, Other Diary Products and Eggs (82.2%) and Tea, Mate and Other Plant Products for Infusion (77.7%).
Commenting on this in a tweet, Prof Hanke said “#Ghana‘s economic woes continue to mount.
“Today, I measure #inflation in Ghana at a stunning 104.31%/yr, ~1.93x the “official” rate. The Ghana Statistical Services just keeps producing RUBBISH.”
Following the increasing rate of inflation, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) also increased the policy rate to 28 percent.
This is up from the earlier rate of 27%. This was announced by the governor of the BoG at the 110th MPC Press conference in Accra on Monday, January 30.
“In the interim, the MPC sees the need to remain vigilant and moderate liquidity in the system to underpin macroeconomic adjustments taking place to drive inflation on a downward path.
“Under the circumstances, the Committee decided to increase the policy rate by 100 basis points to 28%”, the MPC chaired by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison revealed.
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