Stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to implement policies that will tame the accelerating inflation in the country.
Stakeholders said that, given the continuing challenges facing the economy, a coordinated government effort is crucial, to ease the financial strain on consumers and maintain fiscal stability, according to The Punch.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr. Muda Yusuf, said, “The Federal Government should prioritise the issue of these basic needs, which is the high cost of living.
“It should be a priority, which is taking some emergency steps to tackle the problem of high cost of living, direct state intervention to bring down the cost of basic items like food, cooking gas, energy.”
He stated that although the ongoing reforms of the Federal Government were laudable, there was still a crucial need for the government to prioritise efforts to cut down the prices of various goods.
“This would involve those producing those items directly and giving them fiscal incentives so that their cost of production can come down so that the prices of these basic needs can come down, and this would trickle down more than distributing palliatives,” he noted.
He pointed out that the government could contact flour millers and ask them what would have to be done to reduce bread prices.
In addition, he said that this could be extended to sugar, cooking gas, and other basic needs, which would allow the government to address the problem of rising prices in the country.
He mentioned that insufficient rice supplies resulted in unused rice meals across the country.
He suggested that until local farmers were able to meet demand, rice paddies should be imported to support the rice mills.
“The government should bring down the cost of energy, renewables, and conversion to CNG by people who want to convert their vehicles. Currently, it is too high. If Nigerians are using CNG, it will just cost them about 30 per cent of the current cost of PMS or diesel,” he declared.
Yusuf underlined that the government should work more with cooperatives because there were so many of them across the country.
“If the government gives them funds, they have a way of ensuring that their members pay back the loans because they are very organised,” he added.
Meanwhile, in his remark, the Partner and Global Transfer Pricing Head, Andersen, Dr Joshua Bamfo, said, “We must formulate policies to help us achieve our end goal, which is to alleviate people from poverty, to be able to afford necessities of life. We must have a sustained economic growth.”
He underlined the need for policies that will lift people out of poverty and enable them to have access to essential goods.
