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True! Ghana’s inflation triples Ukraine’s inflation in July

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Claim: The Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has claimed that the inflation in Ghana was thrice that of the inflation in war-torn Ukraine in July this year.

Verdict: True. According to data from the Ghana Statistical Service and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the year-on-year inflation for both countries stood at 43.1% and 11.3%, respectively.

Full Text

The Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, asserted that “inflation is galloping” at a 43.1% rate annually. In a Facebook post, the policy analyst compared Ghana’s and Ukraine’s inflation in July.

The post gained widespread reaction, with Ghanaweb, a popular website with a wide reach, carrying a story on the post and headlining it: “Ghana’s inflation in July 2023 is three times higher than Ukraine — Franklin Cudjoe”. The story can be found here.

Considering the prominence of the person who made the claim and the contradictory comments by a section of commentators on Facebook regarding the authenticity and veracity of the post, DUBAWA Ghana decided to fact-check the claim.

Verification

On August 9, 2023, the Ghana Statistical Service presented its monthly report on year-on-year (yoy) and month-on-month (mom).  The service data shows that annual consumer inflation continued to increase, reaching 43.1%, down from 42.5% in June and 42.2% in May. DUBAWA Ghana compared these statistics to those of Ukraine.

Source: Ghana Statistical Service

The National Bank of Ukraine reported in their July 2023 inflation report that, despite the country’s involvement in a war with neighbouring Russia, inflation continued to fall, and commodity prices also fell. The bank said consumer inflation in annual terms continued to slow to 11.3%, down from 12.8% in June.

Source: National Bank of Ukraine

The NBU further predicted that “inflation will slow to 10.6%, and real GDP will grow by 2.9%” in the coming months of this year.

Conclusion

The data from the Ghana Statistical Service and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine confirmed that the year-on-year inflation in July in Ghana was much higher than that in Ukraine. The difference is three times higher in percentage; hence, the claim is TRUE.

This report was produced under the Department of Communication Studies and DUBAWA’s project aimed at improving fact-checking competency and practice among Ghanaian media organisations with support from UNESCO IPDC.

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