By Prince Ahenkorah
The Government Statistician’s latest bulletin makes for extraordinary reading. Ghana’s year-on-year inflation has collapsed to 3.3% as of February 2026, a dizzying drop from the 23.1% recorded just twelve months prior. It is the 14th consecutive month of decline and the lowest reading since the CPI was rebased in 2021, offering a powerful statistical vindication for the government’s economic management ahead of a crucial election year.
The headline figure, released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), shows the Consumer Price Index (CPI) settling at 264.4. The steep descent from the peaks of 2025 appears, on the surface, to signal a decisive victory in the battle against the cost of living.
Food inflation, the most politically sensitive metric, has slowed dramatically to 2.4%, down from 3.9% in January, with month-on-month prices barely moving. For the ordinary Ghanaian, this suggests some respite at the market.
Imported Ease, Local Stickiness
Beneath the aggregate figures, however, lie the structural nuances that will concern economic policymakers. The disinflation is being driven overwhelmingly by imported goods, which recorded year-on-year inflation of just 0.6%, a dramatic fall from 2.0% in January. Month-on-month, prices for imported items were virtually flat at -0.02%, reflecting the cedi’s relative stability and softening global commodity prices.
Conversely, locally produced items tell a stickier story. Inflation for domestic goods stands at 4.5%, marginally up from January and significantly higher than the national average. Non-food inflation also nudged upwards to 4.0%, suggesting that domestic production costs—labour, transport, and utilities—remain obstinate. The month-on-month figures for non-food items (1.2%) and goods (0.94%) indicate that while the dramatic fall has occurred, underlying price pressures have not entirely vanished; they have merely moderated.
The Regional Divide: Savannah Deflates, North East Heats
The national average, as always, masks deep regional fractures. The Savannah Region recorded an eye-catching -2.6% inflation rate, a deflationary outlier that points to a collapse in local demand or a significant supply glut. Such a figure, while statistically beneficial for the national average, often signals economic distress for farmers and traders in that locality.
In stark contrast, the North East Region recorded the nation’s highest inflation at 8.9%, a reminder that the cost of living crisis persists acutely in the country’s peripheries even as the centre cools. This disparity will not be lost on opposition strategists, who will argue that the government’s macroeconomic gains have yet to trickle down to the poorest households in the northern savannahs.
The Political Economy of Price Stability
For the administration, this data is a political goldmine. To have wrestled inflation from the stratospheric 54.1% of December 2022 down to 3.3% is a feat of orthodox economic management that few would have predicted. It provides a powerful rebuttal to critics who lambasted the recent IMF programme and domestic debt exchange as too harsh.
Yet, the 0.8% month-on-month rise in the overall CPI between January and February serves as a caution. The rate of decline is slowing. The risk now is not runaway inflation, but the potential for prices to stabilise and then gently rise again as we approach the election. The government will be hoping the trend holds.
For the opposition, the focus will shift from the macro numbers to the micro reality: if inflation is 3.3%, why do so many still feel the pinch? The answer, as always, lies in those stubborn local figures and the regional disparities that the national average obscures.