Building inflation holds steady at 2.2% in April
Ghana’s building inflation rate remained unchanged at 2.2 per cent in April 2026, offering some relief to households, contractors and developers despite rising monthly prices for construction materials and labour.
The latest Prime Building Cost Index (PBCI) released for April showed that although the year-on-year inflation rate stayed the same as in March, the general cost of building inputs increased by 1.5 per cent between March and April this year.
The Government Statistician, Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, who stated this during a press conference to present data on the PBCI in Accra yesterday, noted that the PBCI for April 2026 stood at 136.1, up from 133.2 recorded in April 2025, reflecting the 2.2 per cent annual increase in construction costs.
He said data on the PBCI indicated that the April 2026 inflation figure represented a sharp decline of 22.2 percentage points from the 24.4 per cent recorded in March 2025.
Prices for building materials, however, continued to rise gradually on a month-on-month basis.
Material inflation increased slightly to 2.4 per cent in April from 2.3 per cent in March, while prices of materials rose by 1.7 per cent within the month under review.
Dr Iddrisu said labour inflation, on the other hand, slowed to 1.0 per cent in April from 1.6 per cent in March, although labour prices still recorded a monthly increase of 0.8 per cent.
“Plant inflation recorded the highest movement among the three major groups, rising to 4.7 per cent year-on-year from 2.6 per cent in March. At the sub-group level, glazing materials recorded the highest inflation rate of 16.2 per cent, reflecting rising costs within that category,” stated.
Dr Iddrisu said cement recorded the lowest inflation at negative 11.2 per cent, suggesting a decline in prices compared to the same period last year.
In a raft of recommendations, the Government Statistician, advised households planning to undertake building projects to phase construction activities carefully and purchase relatively lower-priced materials such as cement and steel early to avoid future price increases.
He also urged households to budget adequately for high-inflation items including glazing, plumbing materials and roofing sheets.
For businesses, particularly contractors and developers, Dr Iddrisu urged them to lock up supplier prices through medium-term contracts to reduce exposure to volatile material costs.
He also urged Contractors to update bids regularly using the PBCI, with special attention to electrical works, glazing, plumbing, metal works and skilled labour, which continue to drive costs within the sector.
Dr Iddrisu encouraged government to take advantage of the relatively subdued inflation environment to accelerate infrastructure projects.
According to him, policy interventions should focus on easing supply bottlenecks affecting high-cost materials while expanding artisan and technical training programmes to contain future labour cost pressures.
The PBCI tracks changes in the cost of construction using prices collected from 406 items across 16 markets and 489 outlets nationwide, with 2023 serving as the base year.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
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