SA Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus on Thursday sounded a warning about above-inflation price increases for administered costs, such as electricity.

"The case for further significant above-inflation increases is questionable," Marcus said in Pretoria.

"The determination of administered prices should not act as an inhibitor to growth and investment."

Marcus was announcing the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) decision to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.5 percent.

"The main pressures on inflation continue to emanate primarily from cost push pressures," she said.

Cost-push inflation is caused by substantial increases in the cost of important goods or services where no suitable alternative is available -- such as electricity and petrol.

Marcus said administered prices -- a price set by law or official policy, not by demand -- remained a concern to the inflation outlook.

"The price of electricity has been an important driver of inflation, and increases of 17.3 percent are assumed for both 2012 and 2013."

The National Energy Regulator of SA's (Nersa) determination of the current increase ends in mid-2013.

Nersa needs to decide on what increase to apply after that, she said.

The SARB inflation target of between three and six percent was breached in November last year.

"Inflation is now expected to remain above the upper end of the target range for a more extended period," Marcus said.

The MPC had revised its inflation forecast upward and now expected it to remain outside the upper end of the target range for the whole of 2012.

Marcus said inflation should peak at around 6.6 percent in the second quarter of this year and return to within the target range in the first quarter of 2013.

"Inflation is expected to measure 5.5 percent in the final quarter of 2013," she said.

The SARB's mandate is to achieve and maintain price stability in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth in South Africa. It quantifies the achievement of price stability through meeting an inflation target.