• Consumer price inflation cooled by 0.1 percentage points to 7.5 percent in September 2022.
• While some items are cheaper compared to August 2022, the trend reveals South Africans are paying far more compared to September 2021.
• The one decrease in price over the year was for telecommunications equipment.

On Wednesday Statistics South Africa revealed the monthly consumer price index (CPI) for September and, well, it’s not very good.

While consumer price inflation is cooling from the 7.8 percent high seen in July, September’s 7.5 percent figure is still alarmingly high compared to the 5 percent recorded in September 2021.

The crux of the report is that most everyday items are getting more expensive even despite the 0.1 percentage point drop from August 2022.

As we can see above onions were nearly 10 percent more expensive than they were in August as were chicken giblets. Let that sink in for a second because the fact that giblets increased in price between August and September should really be more shocking.

And it’s not just food and fuel that are getting more expensive. The cost of renting property increased 0.8 percent between August and September and compared to a year ago you paid 2.8 percent more. As for electricity and other, you paid 8.3 percent more than in 2021.

Curiously, the one item that has seen prices come down is telecommunication equipment which is 10.2 percent less expensive than it was a year ago. Even compared to August, telecommunications equipment was 2 percent less in September.

One increase that is somewhat good news is that the wages of domestic workers increased by 3.8 percent in September.

The one shining star in September’s report is a 6.4 percent drop in the price of fuel compared to August. We still paid 34.1 percent more than in September 2021 though.

The fact of the matter is that South Africans have been and will continue to have to count every penny they have. While this isn’t great our 7.5 percent increase isn’t as drastic as the 8.2 percent increase in the US or the 10.1 percent increase in the UK.

This morning visiting professor at Wits Business School, Jannie Rossouw, told 702’s Africa Melane that the reason we may be performing better than the US and UK may be down thanks to the South African Reserve Bank.

“In my view, the South African Reserve Bank had the more pre-emptive approach to inflation, and we now see the success of this approach, with our rate of inflation better contained than in those countries,” said Rossouw.

Given that most food is getting more expensive we’re going to start looking to recipes from the Great Depression to feed ourselves.

[Source – Statistics South Africa] [Image – CC 0 Pixabay]