Unstoppable price monster humble consumers

PHILLEPUS UUSIKU

Prices of goods and services continue to rise in Namibia. Statistics released by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) indicated that annual inflation in October 2021 stood at 3.6%, up from 2.3 % recorded in October 2020, an increase of 1.3 percentage points.

In September 2021, annual inflation stood at 3.5%. As usual, transport, food and non-alcoholic beverages were the main contributors to annual inflation, each category contributing 40% and 26%, respectively. This month, fuel prices increased for the seventh time in 2021.

The transport category carries that the third largest weight of 14.28 in the NSA consumer basket, while the food and non-alcoholic beverages category carries the fourth largest weight of 12.59.

The highest change in the annual inflation rate were mainly witnessed in the categories of transport (7.5%), miscellaneous goods and services (6.6%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (5.0%), furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house (4.8%) and health (3.5%) while clothing and footwear registered a deflation of (3.1%), NSA said.

Commenting of the figures, Simonis Storm says they maintain annual inflation forecast at 3.5% for 2021.

Zones

With regard to the zones, Zone 3 (//Kharas, Erongo, Hardap and Omaheke) recorded the highest inflation rate of 4.7% followed by Zone 2 (Khomas) and Zone 1(northern regions), each recording an inflation rate of 3.3% and 3.2%, respectively.

Zone 1 inflation resulted from increases in the price levels of transport from 0.3% to 11.7%, furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house from 4.4% to 5.3%, health from 2.5% to 3.5%, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels from -2.6% to 1.0% and clothing and footwear from -10.2% to -2.2%, NSA pointed out.

As for zone 2, the increase was mainly due to increases in the price levels of transport from -1.1% to 10.1%, Furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house from 2.9% to 5.3%, Miscellaneous goods and services from 4.9% to 7.4%, clothing and footwear from -3.6% to -1.2% and Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels from -1.1% to 0.5%, NSA added.

Lastly, Zone 3 inflation was mainly due to increases in the price levels of transport from -2.6% to 9.7%, miscellaneous goods and services from 3.4% to 11.6%, hotels, cafes and restaurants from -0.5% to 5.0%, furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house from 0.8% to 5.3% and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels from 0.4% to 2.4%, NSA said. [email protected]