Food Inflation Slowing Down—Wale Edun

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, has said Nigeria’s food inflation has started easing despite rising to 40.01 per cent in March 2024 on a year-on-year basis.

On Monday, Business Post reported that the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for last month showed that the food inflation rate in March 2024 stood at 3.62 per cent, showing a decline of 0.17 per cent from February 2024, when it was 3.79 per cent

However, on a year-on-year basis, food inflation reached 40.01 per cent in March 2024, marking an increase of 15.56 percentage points from 24.45 per cent in March 2023.

Speaking from Washington DC where he is attending the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank Spring Meetings alongside the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso, the Minister lauded the economic team of President Bola Tinubu on its reforms in the Nigerian economy.

He said, “The Economic Team of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is here to showcase the progress so far of his bold, courageous and strategic reforms of the Nigerian economy to get it stabilised and get investment in to get it growing again.

“We’ve all seen what has happened in terms of stabilising the exchange rate and inflation which is headed in the right direction.

“If you look closely at the numbers that came out yesterday (Monday), you will see that there is a slowing of the rate of increase of food inflation, things are moving in the right direction, government revenues are up, even oil revenues are up but not as much as we will like.”

The NBS showed on Monday that Nigeria’s inflation rate jumped to a 28-year Hugh of 33.20 per cent in March 2024 compared to the February 2024 headline inflation rate which was 31.70 per cent.

The inflation for March 2024 was largely driven by an increase in food such as garri, millet, yam, and bread coupled with energy and housing costs.

The inflation report by the NBS followed the 200 basis points hike of Nigeria’s interest rate from 22.75 per cent to 24.75 per cent by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the apex bank.