There was a further rise in national year-on-year inflation in December , the last month of 2021, by a 0.4 percentage points from the 12.2 percent recorded in November 2021.

According to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) Newsletter released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday, January 12, 2022, the national year-on-year inflation rose for the sixth consecutive month to 12.6 percent in December 2021.

“For the sixth month in row, year-on-year consumer inflation has consistently increased, going up by 4.8 percentage points between June 2021 (7.8%) and December 2021 (12.6%)”.
Government Statistician – Prof. Annim Kobina

According to the (GSS), the hike in inflation in December was driven mainly by the ’Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels’ sub-division with an inflation rate of 20.7 percent.

Month-on-month inflation between November and December 2021 slowed to 1.2%, down by 0.2 percentage points from the 1.4 percent recorded in November – the highest recorded since July 2021.

Food Inflation

Average food prices decreased in December after increasing in November last year. From 13.1 percent in November, food inflation declined to 12.8 percent in December last year but was higher than the average of the previous 12 months of 10.3 percent.

Consequently, food inflation’s contribution to total inflation decreased from 47.7 percent in November to 45.2 percent in December 2021. Overall, month-on-month food inflation was 1.2 percent, which is higher than the twelve-month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation of 1.0 percent.

Fourteen out of the fifteen food subclasses recorded positive month-on-month inflation with Coffee and Coffee substitutes recording a deflation of 0.3 percent.

Non-Food Inflation

Non-food year-on-year inflation on average, went up again in December to 12.5 percent from 11.6 percent in November. Two out of the 12 Non-food Divisions had the 12 months rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for December 2021. Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels recorded the highest inflation of 20.7 percent in December 2021.

Regional inflation

At the regional level, the overall year-on-year inflation in December 2021 ranged from 7.4 percent in the Eastern Region to 18.6 percent in the Upper West Region.

This means the Upper West Region continues to hold the position as the region with the highest inflation rate in the country, something that was previously a preserve of the Greater Accra region. In November 2021, Upper West Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 17.2 percent.

Eastern Region, however, recorded the highest month-on-month inflation of 4.8 percent in the last month of 2021. In December 2021, all regions recorded positive month-on-month inflation rates with the Upper East region recording the lowest rate of 0.1 percent.

Imported and Local Inflation

Inflation for imported goods rose for the third consecutive month in December to record 10.4 percent, higher than the 9.8 percent and 8.8 percent recorded in November and October last year, respectively.

Similarly, Inflation for locally produced items continue to rise since May this year, running counter to the country’s quest to encourage the patronage of made in Ghana products. According to the GSS, inflation for locally produced items rose to 13.3 percent in December 2021, up from 13.0 percent in November.