By Amin Kef Sesay
In January 2020 it has been established according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January 2020, there was a drop in the inflation rate in January 2020. The key findings in the report released on 20th February, 2020, indicate that National Inflation Rate Annual National Consumer Price Inflation (year-on-year) went down by 0.29 percentage from 13.89 percent in December 2019 to 13.60 percent in January 2020.
It adds that the monthly Consumer Price Inflation for January 2020 was 1.51 percent; up by 1.10 percentage point from 0.41 percent in December, 2019.
It adds that food and non-alcoholic beverages increased from 5.38 percent in December 2019 to 7.46 percent in January 2020. The inflation rate increased by 2.08 percentage points year-on-year.
Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics declined by 0.78 percentage points from 11.54 percent in December 2019 to 10.76 percent in January 2020. It went further to state that clothing and footwear declined by 7.65 percentage points from 15.78 percent in December 2019 to 8.13 percent in January 2020. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels declined by 0.05 percentage points from 10.39 percent in December 2019 to 10.34 percent in January 2020 Furniture, household equipment and household declined by 4.05 percentage points from 22.24 percent in December 2019 to 18.19 percent in January 2020. Health declined by 4.50 percentage points from 39.95 percent in December 2019 to 35.45 percent in January 2020.
Transport increased from 11.47 percent in December 2019 to 17.77 percent in January 2020. The inflation rate increased by 6.30 percentage points year-on-year. Communication declined by 0.66 percentage points from 7.88 percent in December 2019 to 7.22 percent in January 2020.
Recreation and Culture declined by 3.22 percentage points from 3.05 percent in December 2019 to -0.17 percent in January 2020. Education declined by 0.60 percentage points from 71.36 percent in December 2019 to 70.76 percent in January 2020. Restaurant and Hotels increased from 10.13 percent in December 2019 to 21.31 percent in January 2020. The inflation rate increased by 11.18 percentage points year-on-year. Miscellaneous goods and services declined by 4.90 percentage points from 15.67 percent in December 2019 to 10.77 percent in January 2020.
Explaining that factors influencing changes in monthly inflation, the Stats SL release added that the monthly price inflation of 1.51 percent reflects a general change in the price level in all the four regions which affected all of the items in the CPI basket.
The monthly indices increased: food and non-alcoholic beverages to 1.86 percent; clothing and footwear to 2.63 percent; transport to 4.67 percent; recreation and culture to 0.51 percent; restaurants and hotels to 6.43 percent and miscellaneous goods and services to 2.60 percent.
The National CPI measures the change in prices, on average, from month to month, of the goods and services bought by households, in Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Kono and Makeni and include all expenditure groups. Prices are collected for at least 436 items. All prices collected are the prevailing retail market prices from six (6) markets in Freetown and, three (3) Markets each in Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Kono for weekly prices and other outlets for monthly items whose prices are less likely to fluctuate rapidly.
According to Stats SL, they are using the Modified Laspeyres formula to compute indices according to the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) with 12 functions.
