The Federal Government’s food security policies may push the inflation rate to a record high 18.17 per cent that was recorded in March 2021,the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture(NACCIMA),has said.
The NACCIMA President, Ide J. C. Udeagbala, said Inflation, measured on a year-on-year basis, had grown from 15.63 per cent as at December, 2021 to 15.92 per cent as of March 2022.
According to him:“Headline inflation continues to be pushed by rising food prices. It is our hope that food security policies of the Federal Government, its ministries and agencies will prevent a return to inflation rates as high as 18.17 per cent recorded as of March 2021.”
He noted that despite the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the decline in Nigeria’s economic growth as shown by figures from the National Bureau of Statistics called for concern.
He said,:“According to data on national output from the National Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian economy grew by 3.98 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, a drop from 4.03 per cent in the third quarter, which dropped from 5.01 per cent in the second quarter of 2021. We emphasise this slight but continuous drop in growth rate even as we acknowledge that the Nigerian economy bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic in the fourth quarter of the year 2020 to reach the peak growth rate for the period, of 5.01 per cent by mid-2021.
“This declining trend is most concerning to us, as we consider that statistics on GDP is three or four months behind the present day. Therefore, we estimate that the growth rate of national output for the first three months of 2022 has decreased further considering the state of conflict in Europe which has had a negative impact on energy and food prices.
He said the Federal Government must urgently avert another looming recession.
He added:”It is the position of our association that there is a very urgent need for policy implementation to avert a third recession of this decade by the end of 2022, even as the World Bank projects that the Nigerian economy will grow by 4.1 per cent this year.”
