The Federal Government has decried the growing inflation in Nigeria, saying mechanisms have been activated to check the trend.
According to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has directed the National Food Security Council to brainstorm and make recommendations on the way forward.
Ahmed made this known at the House of Representatives in Abuja on Wednesday while appearing before the committee on finance to defend the budget proposed by the ministry in the 2023 Appropriation Bill.
Chairman of the committee, James Faleke, had asked about efforts being made by the government to arrest the rising inflation in the country, which he said had become a concern to many Nigerians.
Responding, the minister blamed it on various factors, saying, “On inflation, it is 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 affect Nigeria. For example the war between 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 and Europe on monetary tightening have also 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 markets, the increasing cost of transportation is impacting on the food.
“What the Central Bank of Nigeria is doing is continuing to monitor inflation by tightening money and mopping up liquidity.”