General News of Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Source: classfmonline.com

Ghana's inflation rate is 101.74%; GSS's rate is 'rubbish' – Steve Hanke

Prof. Steve Hanke, renowned international economist at the Johns Hopkins University-USA Prof. Steve Hanke, renowned international economist at the Johns Hopkins University-USA

Ghana's inflation rate is 101.74 %, which is approximately 1.9% more than the "official" rate quoted by the Ghana Statistical Service,

Professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins and Senior Fellow at IndependentInst, Steve Hanke, has said.

"Today, I measure inflation in Ghana at a staggering 101.74%/yr, ~1.9x the 'official' rate", Mr Hanke tweeted.

The Ghana Statistical Service, has said, "just keeps producing rubbish".

The rate of Ghana's inflation, according to the GSS, recently dropped from 54.1% to 53.6%.

This was the first marginal fall against a 19-month upward trajectory.

The fall pertained to the month of January 2023.

According to the GSS, month-on-month inflation between December 2022 and January 2023 was 1.7%.

Also, food inflation for January was 59.7%

Month-on-month food inflation was 2.8% while non-food Inflation (0.563) was 47.9%.

January's non-food inflation was 49.9%.

Month-on-month Non-Food inflation was 0.8% with inflation for locally produced items pegged at 50.0%.

Inflation for imported items was also 62.5%

On a regional level, the Eastern Region recorded the highest year-on-year inflation of 66.2% while Greater Accra followed with an inflation of 65%.