Ghana’s Telecom sector recorded an average of 0.4% inflation rate year end December 2012, which was the lowest for all sectors according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) ending December 2012. The country closed the year with 8.8% inflation rate, of which the non-food sector contributed 78.4% and food sector contributed 21.6%. The telecom subsector belongs to the non-food sector, but its contribution to the total inflation from that sector was 0.0% according to the CPI. Indeed, during the year, the prices of telecom services came down in some case as service providers embarked on several promotions to excite existing customers and to win new customers. The telcos also continued to absorb some costs such as communication service tax, MNP cost and other ever-increasing operational cost elements on behalf of their customers. The CPI showed none of the sub-sectors under both food and non-food sectors, recorded anything less than 3.5% inflation rate, but the telecom sector did not even record 0.5% in their tariff increases. Experts say that may have contributed immensely to the government’s achievement of 8.8% inflation rate, which is just 0.3% shy of the 8.5% target for the year. But communication sector also constituted only 0.31% of household spending, which was also the lowest in the CPI basket for the period. A section of the media also reported earlier this year, quoting the Third Quarter Report of the GSS this year, that Information and Communication (telecoms) was one of two subsectors which contributed negatively to Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the other subsector being Transport and Storage. Fourth Quarter GDP is yet to be published by the GSS. Meanwhile, on the CPI, electricity, which constitutes one of the major operational cost elements of the telecoms sector, recorded an inflation rate of 7.7% in December. Electricity is in the same category as other utility services such as water, housing and gas. Ghanaians have no doubt seen some rough times in telecoms service quality, but so have they suffered with electricity and water, and yet tariffs for those two utilities continue to increase at an increasing rate regularly, while the telecom sector maintains stable tariffs largely due to competition. Transport topped the non-food sector with an inflation rate of 20.6%; followed by Education with16.5 per cent, and then Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics (16.5 %). The CPI also showed that Hotels, cafes and restaurants had an average inflation rate of 8.4% full year, recreation an d culture recorded 10.4%; food and non-alcoholic, 3.9%; clothing, 13.6%; Health, 9.4%; Furniture, household and equipment, 12.7% and Miscellaneous goods and services recorded 14.4%. The overall average inflation for non-food sector year-on-year was 11.6%, while the food sector recorded some 4.6%, and the combined inflation for food and non-food was 9.2%.