Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has announced that the inflation for the month of September was 7.6 per cent.  

According to the national data compilation body, although the rate indicated a decline compared to the 7.8 per cent recorded in August 2019, prices have not dropped.

Instead, prices have gone up at a relatively smaller rate.

Announcing the rate at a news conference in Accra, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, explained that “the 7.8 per cent that we recorded in August and the 7.6 per cent that we are reporting for September 2019 does not mean that the prices of commodities have gone down. This simply means that in both August and September, prices went up but the only difference is that the rate of increase in prices for September 2019 is relatively slower.”

Professor Annim said the September rate was largely driven by non-food inflation which recorded a rate of 8.5 per cent, 0.3 percentage points higher than the rate of 8.2 per cent recorded in August.

“The year-on-year inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 7.6 per cent in September 2019, down by 0.2 percentage points from the 7.8 per cent recorded in August.  Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels were the key driver of September’s inflation,” he said.