Ghana's annual consumer price inflation fell to 13.3 percent in January from 15.4 percent the previous month, the statistics office said on Wednesday.
"The reduction in the index for January 2017 is a clear manifestation of the base rate effect, driven mainly by the higher utility price hikes that we saw in January of last year," Baah Wadie, acting government statistician, told a news conference.
The new government of President Nana Akufo-Addo will present its first budget in early March. It has said it aims to restore fiscal discipline, boost growth, create jobs, fight poverty with development programmes and liberate the private sector.
Ghana is following a three-year programme with the International Monetary Fund that aims to reduce inflation, the deficit and the public deficit, stabilize the currency and boost growth in a country that produces, gold, oil and cocoa.
But the Fund said last week inflation is falling more slowly than expected and the government said last month it had found a $1.6 billion hole in the budget and the fiscal deficit was around double the 2016 target of 5.25 percent.
Inflation is expected to fall in the early months of this year as the effect of cuts at the end of 2015 to subsidies on fuel and utilities passes through the system.
Non-food inflation fell to 16.6 percent in January as against 18.2 percent in December. Food inflation stood at 7.0 percent in January compared with 9.7 percent the month before.
© Reuters News
Non-food inflation fell to 16.6 percent in January as against 18.2 percent in December. Food inflation stood at 7.0 percent in January compared with 9.7 percent the month before.
© Reuters News
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