Ghana’s Statistical Service has a new leader in the shape of Professor Samuel Kobina Annim who was appointed by President Akufo-Addo on the recommendation of the Public Services Commission.
Prof. Annim; an Associate Professor of Economics assumed duty on March 1, 2019 as Government Statistician.
Prof. Annim worked with the University of Cape Coast for over 18 years before assuming his new role and in his first job has declared the inflation rate for March where inflation increased slightly to 9.3 percent from the 9.2 percent recorded in February.
The March 2019 figure is 0.1 percentage points higher than the 9.2 per cent recorded in February this year.
The new government statistician says he is keen to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and involve more people in determining the basket and weight adding the data generated will be easily verifiable when put of the agency’s website. He pledged transparency and inclusivity interfacing with ICT.
Meanwhile Deputy Government Statistician, David Kombat said four regions — Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Western and Ashanti — recorded inflation rates higher than the national average of 9.3 per cent. The Volta Region however recorded the same inflation as the national average.
“The Upper West Region recorded the highest year-on-year inflation rate of 11.4 per cent, followed by Brong Ahafo with 10.2 per cent, while the Upper East Region recorded the lowest year-on-year inflation of 7.9 per cent in March 2019,” he said.
“We’ve seen an increase in inflation rate and it could be partly attributed to the exchange rate we’ve seen in recent weeks,” Mr Kombat also stated.
The food inflation basket recorded a rate of 8.4 percent, compared to 8.1 per cent recorded in February 2019. The non-food basket inflation rate of 9.7 percent in February 2019 remained unchanged in March 2019.
The main drivers of non-food inflation were recreation and culture (14.1 per cent), transport (13.7 per cent), clothing and footwear (13.3 per cent) and furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance (12.2 per cent).
The price drivers for the food inflation rate included coffee, tea and cocoa (13 per cent), mineral water, soft drinks, fruit and vegetable juices (11.1 percent), fruits (10.2 percent) and meat and meat products (9.1 percent). These emerged at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday organised by the Ghana Statistical Services (GSS).
By Michael Eli Dokosi/goldstreetbusiness.com
