The minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has assured that mechanisms have been activated to tackle the growing inflation in the country.
To this end, the minister said President Muhammadu Buhari already directed the national food security council to brainstorm and make recommendations on the way forward.
Ahmed made this known yesterday in Abuja when she appeared before the House of Representatives committee on finance for 2022 budget performance and the 2023 budget defence.
“On inflation, it’s a very serious situation where Nigeria’s inflation is now 23 per cent. The inflation in Nigeria has a number of components, one of them is imported inflation, occurrences in other countries also affects Nigeria. For example, the war in Ukraine and Russia has an impact on Nigeria in the sense that some of the inputs for food production are affected. Also the decisions taken by the central banks in the USA, Europe on monetary tightening have an impact on their own level of inflation that also affects our country. But in Nigeria we also have food inflation, and because of the high cost of diesel we find this showing up in food prices, so when farmers produce their goods and they have to transport them to market the increasing cost of transportation is impacting the food. What the central bank is doing is continuing to monitor inflation by money tightening and mopping up liquidity.
“On the side of the government, the President has authorised the National food security council and we have held a meeting on how some support will be provided. The committee will be meeting again in the next couple of days to provide recommendations to Mr. President,” she said.
The minister also said that more scanners had been procured to be installed at the Nigerian ports to make them more resourceful and attractive and discourage the country from using other country’s ports.
