Prof. Godfred A. Bokpin, an economics instructor at the University of Ghana Business School, claims that the high inflation rate for the month of October is not as startling as many Ghanaians have claimed.
This, he says, was not unexpected as the ingredients for higher inflation rates were present and just waiting to manifest themselves at the end of the month.
It is not surprising, and I'm saying that because we've seen inflationary pressures solidifying and spreading across food and non-food inflations. It's expected that inflation will continue high until the end of the year.
He warned that more difficult times lay ahead and expressed concern that things would not improve very soon.
"If you look at the drivers of inflation now, it tells you the impact it has on households, and the reason I say so is that between 42% and 44% of household expenditures in Ghana are on food, so if food inflation is increasing at an increasing rate as we are seeing, then that should tell you the extent to which households are being negatively impacted," the author says.
The government statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, reported that the CPI's annual inflation rate for the month of October was 40.4 percent.
According to the figures, inflation for both food and non-food increased to 43.7 percent and 37.8 percent, respectively.
Among the 16 areas of the nation, the Eastern Region had the greatest inflation rate (51.1%), with the Central Region having the highest food inflation (57). nine percent.
He continued by saying that the situation was further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which had a substantial impact on the purchasing capacity of many households across the nation.
Because the nation has shifted from one crisis to another and because the average household no longer has a buffer to withstand price shocks, the rising inflation greatly exceeds the purchasing power of households, making them (these households) susceptible.
He cautioned that in order to help lower inflation, the high amounts of importation that accompany Christmas celebrations must be curtailed.