Botswana data authority had reiterated that the ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disturb collection information to measure inflation on the economy.
Statistics Botswana on Tuesday reported that COVID-19 pandemic has affected compilation of May consumer price index (CPI) due to the lockdown restrictions.
Statistician General, Burton Mguni, said the prices data collection was done physically, augmented with the use of emails and telephone and it covered approximately 95 percent of items in CPI basket.
“The most affected sections in the CPI basket were alcoholic beverages and tobacco, where outlets were closed to comply with the COVID-19 restrictions. The closure of these outlets has resulted in a number of missing prices,” said Mguni.
He said all missing or unobserved prices were imputed using geometric mean of price relatives (variation) of the observed prices in accordance with the International Monetary Fund guidelines.
Meanwhile the annual inflation rate in May 2020 was 2.4 percent, registering a decrease of 0.1 of a percentage point from 2.5 percent recorded in April 2020. Enditem
