Ghana’s inflation rises to 23.8% — highest in eight months

Ghana’s consumer inflation rate rose for the fourth consecutive month to 23.8 percent in December 2024.

Samuel Kobina Annim, government statistician at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), announced the figure to journalists in Accra on Wednesday.

Ghana’s inflation rate started rising in September last year, when it rose to 21.5 percent, then climbed further to 22.1 percent in October and 23 percent in November.

Annim said the inflation rate recorded at the end of last year was the highest in eight months.

“The rate of inflation… is the third highest in the last 13 months and highest in the last eight months,” Annim said.  

Also, food inflation saw a significant jump, rising from 25.9 percent in November to 27.8 percent in December.

Annim attributed the increase to the contributions from specific food items, such as yams, showing drastic year-on-year price hikes of 63.3 percent.  

He also highlighted the need for a dual approach to tackling inflation, addressing both monetary and real-sector issues.

“We do emphasise that there are two perspectives in addressing inflation. One is the monetary side… and the other is the real side, with what we’ve seen with food inflation, more particularly the food that we consume, that are locally produced,” he added.

Annim urged policymakers to focus on production, value chains, transportation, warehousing, and reducing post-harvest losses to stabilise food prices.  

“Policymakers put in diverse interventions, rather than focusing on, let’s say, only exchange rate or focusing on just some selected items that do not cover the variety of food items that influence food prices,” he said.

The figure was announced two days after John Mahama took over from Nana Akufo-Addo as Ghana’s president.

Mahama returned to Ghana’s Jubilee House as the democratically elected president for the second time after defeating Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), in December’s elections.