KAMPALA, UGANDA- Last month, Uganda's inflation rate jumped into a double digit figure after almost 14 months under a single digit.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) announced that the annual headline inflation rate for the year ending March 2011 rose to 11.1% from 6.4% that was recorded for the year ended February 2011.
This showed that the bureau had recorded the highest inflation rate since November 2009 when it was recorded at 11.9%.
The bureau said that a 23.7% surge in the annual food inflation rate for the year ending March 2011 was one of the main drivers of the annual inflation rate. "Food crops registered an annual inflation rate of 29.1% for the year ending March 2011 compared to a 6.9% registered in February 2011.
The annual core inflation rate, which excludes food crops, fuel, electricity and metred water increased to 7.8% compared to 6% recorded in the year ending February 2011," explained Dr. Chris Mukiza Ndatira the UBOS director Macroeconomic Statistics while releasing the figures at the Statistics House in Kampala last week. Uganda's inflation rate release followed that of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) that recorded Kenya's inflation rate for the year ending March 2011 at 9.19%. Rwanda is expected to release their figures later in the month.
Mukiza indicated that the monthly headline inflation rate also went up by 4.1% for the month of March 2011 compared to 1.7 recorded in February 2011. The monthly core inflation rate rose by 1.7 compared to 1.9% rise in February 2011. Monthly food crops inflation recorded a rate of 17.4% while the Energy, Fuel and Utilities inflation rate was at 1.9% for the month of March.
The non food crop inflation rate reduced while the food prices inflation rate was 11.9% due to increases in price of matooke, sweet potatoes, cassava, sweet bananas, oranges, passion fruits, cabbages and tomatoes.
Other food prices that increased were those of onions, green pepper, bitter tomatoes, bbuga, beans, ground nuts, maize flour, rice, milk, refined oil and margarine in most centres.
The increase was attributed to reduced supplies to the market due to prolonged dry season in most parts of the country, in addition to the prices of petrol, diesel and paraffin that went up due to rising price of oil on the international market.
"In turn transport fares went up in most centres due to rising fuel prices,” stressed Mukiza.
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written by mudashir afema yassin, November 01, 2011
