The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has described the country’s communication sector as the smallest contributor to the inflation rate due to the high level of competition amongst operators.
According to Asuo Afram, GSS’ Head of Pricing, the sector has been relatively constant and recorded a price range below one percent since 2010.
“Communication services’ contribution to inflation rate in recent past has been low and at times zero mainly because of the high competition among the service providers resulting in price cuts through various price schemes to attract customers,” Afram said.
He said Ghana’s price level of communication services such as telephone charges (with a weight of 90 percent), EMS charges (five percent) and standard postage (five percent) determined by the sector’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), to a large extent, has remained fairly constant during the period under review.
Afram said the communication sector has played an immense role in lowering Ghana’s inflation rate in 2012. According to him, the communication sector in 2012 recorded fierce competition among various network providers which led to a reduction in costs and lowered level of prices.
The GSS’s latest report said: “The year-on-year inflation rate for December 2012 was 8.8 percent, down from 9.3 percent recorded in November the previous month. The non-food group in the CPI basket of which the communication sector belongs to, recorded a year-on-year inflation rate of 11.6 per cent.
“Six sub groups recorded a year-on-year inflation rate above the non-food group’s average rate with Transport recording the highest of 20.6 percent followed by education, 16.5 per cent; and alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics with 15.1 per cent.”
On the communications sector, inflation was lowest at 0.4 percent in December. This experts believe is connected with the ongoing price war between Ghana’s six telecoms companies who struggling to ensure that they have the cheapest voice and data costs in order to lure more subscribers.
