Govt palliative worsening food inflation, says Cardoso

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, has said that the huge purchase of foodstuffs by the government as palliatives is contributing to the galloping food inflation in the country.

He stated this in his contributions during the March Monetary Policy Committee, which was published on the website of the CBN.

The MPC increased the benchmark interest rate to 24.75 per cent, from 22.75 per cent.

The committee had said that its hawkish stance was to tackle inflation.

However, the country’s inflation rate accelerated to 33.2 per cent in March, with the food inflation rate reaching 40.01 per cent, a year-on-year increase of 15.56 percentage points from 24.45 per cent in March 2023.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the surge in food inflation could be attributed to rising prices for items such as garri, millet, yam tuber, water yam, and others.

Following the removal of fuel subsidy, the Federal Government approved N5bn for each state and the Federal Capital Territory to enable them to procure food items for distribution to the poor in their respective states.