National year-on-year inflation continued its rising trend as it shot up further by 2.2 percentage points to 29.8% in June 2022, the highest recorded since December 2003.

The rise in the rate of inflation last month was driven by six sub-categories which recorded inflation rates higher than the national average and once again, Transport recorded the highest rate of inflation in June.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for June 2022 was 167.7 relative to 129.2 in June 2021, resulting in the rate of 29.8% recorded in June this year.

Latest data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) revealed that month-on-month inflation between May 2022 and June 2022 was 3.0%, down from 4.1% recorded between April and May this year.

This means relative to May 2022, while year-on-year inflation increased by 2.2 percentage points in June 2022, month-on-month inflation dropped by 0.9 percentage points over the same period.

Quarterly averages indicated that average consumer prices in the country rose from 9.8% in Q3 2021 to 27.0% in Q2, 2022. The average inflation rate for the first quarter of 2022 was 16.3%.

Food and Non-Food inflation

According to the figures, food inflation surged to 30.7% in June 2022, from 30.1% recorded in May 2022. The average Food inflation over the last 12 months was 17.5%. On a month-on-month basis, Food inflation was 2.3% in June.

On the other hand, Non-food Inflation was 29.1% in June 2022, up from 25.7 % recorded in May this year. The average Non-Food inflation over the last 12 months was 15.3%. Between May and June 2022, Non-Food inflation was 3.6%.

Six out of the 13 divisions recorded inflation rates higher than the national average (29.8%). These included: Transport (41.6%), Household Equipment and Maintenance (39.6%), Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (38.4%), Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods (31.7%), Recreation, Sports and Culture (31.3%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (30.7%).

While the contribution of Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas (13.7%) to overall inflation increased by 1.3 percentage points between May and June 2022, food’s contribution (45.9%) reduced by 2.5 percentage points and the contribution of Transport also reduced marginally by 0.1 percentage points.

All 13 divisions for the computation of inflation recorded rates higher than the rolling average between July 2021 and June 2022, with six of the divisions surging more than twice.

This means that on year-on-year basis, the difference between food inflation and Non-food was 1.6 percentage points. Meanwhile, on a month-on-month basis, non-food inflation recorded a higher rate of 3.6% relative to food (2.3%), leading to 1.3 percentage points difference.

However, the percentage point increase in Non-food inflation (3.4) between May and June 2022 (month-on-month) was higher than food inflation (0.6).

Inflation for locally produced items was 29.2% while that of imported items was 31.3%. This means the percentage points difference between inflation for imported items and locally domestic items was 2.1% in June 2022.