March inflation unchanged despite coronavirus price hikes

Inflation for March remained the same as the previous two months, even though the coronavirus outbreak hit the country, impacting goods and services.

The national year-on-year inflation rate was 7.8% in March 2020 for the third consecutive month since the beginning of the year. The spread of the virus had a ripple effect impacting negatively on economic activities as the country announced a lockdown and restrictions in movement.

Inflation measures the average change in prices of goods and services over a period of time, and the Government Statistician, Prof Samuel Kobina Annim, said on Thursday that: “This continued the trend of stable inflation of about 8% recorded over the past seven months. Ghana saw a continued faster increase of prices of locally produced (8.8%) than of imported goods (5.6%).”

He further noted that households in the Volta Region saw the highest price increase (9.2%). In comparison, households in the Upper West Region only experienced a 3.5% inflation compared to last year.

The data also indicated that the month-on-month inflation between February 2020 and March 2020 was 0.8%.

The first case of the virus was announced on March 12, and the lockdown was effected on March 27, hence Professor Annim believed the “data did not have the impact of COVID-19”.

Prices of some goods at some markets witnessed sharp price increments, but this did not affect the overall inflation rate for the period.

The test for the country will be from April, as the number of cases had reached 641 with 83 recoveries and eight deaths.

The BoG has taken measures to address the repercussions on inflation, depreciation, gross reserves, GDP and other economic indices by reducing Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) to 14.5% to stimulate liquidity.