ACCRA: Ghana's consumer price inflation was at 8.5% year-on-year in April, down 1.8% from the previous month due to drop in food inflation, the West African nation's statistics service said on Wednesday.

The drop puts the rate within the Bank of Ghana's targeted band of 8% plus or minus 2 percentage points for the first time since January.

Food inflation in the greater Accra region has significantly reduced as the impacts of Covid-19 begin to teeter off, Samuel Kobina Annim, the head of the statistics office said, adding that the margins between locally produced and imported food items were the main drivers of inflation in April.

The central bank, which kept it's prime interest rate unchanged at 14.5%, said in March that it expected headline inflation in the gold-, cocoa-, and oil-producing country to return to the target band in the second quarter of 2021.