Higher Food, Commodity Prices Drive Inflation Further to 24.08%

•Severe in Kogi, Lagos,  Ondo,  others

James Emejo in Abuja

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and commodities rose to 24.08 per cent in July compared to 22.79 per cent in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed yesterday.

The NBS blamed the 1.29 per cent rise in headline inflation on increases in the prices of food and commodities.

Year-on-year, however, headline inflation was 4.44 per cent higher compared to 19.64 per cent recorded in July 2022.

According to the latest CPI Report for July, released by the NBS, food inflation rose 26.98 per cent year-on-year, higher by 4.97 per cent compared with 22.02 per cent recorded in July 2022.

Specifically, the rise in the food index on a year-on-year basis, was attributed to increases in prices of oil and fat, bread and cereals, fish, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fruits, meat, vegetable, milk, cheese, and eggs.

On the other hand, the all items less farm produces and energy or core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produces and energy also increased to 20.47 per cent year-on-year in July, representing a 4.41 percentage rise compared to 16.06 per cent in July 2022.

The rise in the core index was caused by highest in¬creases in prices of passenger transport by air, passenger transport by road, vehicle spare parts, medical services, maintenance, and repair of personal transport equipment among others.

Meanwhile, urban inflation increased to 25.83 per cent year-on-year in the review period, which was 5.74 per cent higher compared with the 20.09 per cent recorded in July 2022.

Month-on-month, the index rose by 0.75 per cent to 3.05 per cent in July, compared to 2.31 per cent in June.

The rural inflation rate also rose to 22.49 per cent year-on-year in July, representing 3.26 per cent increase compared to 19.22 per cent in July 2022.

On a month-on-month, the rural index increased to 2.74 per cent compared to 1.96 per cent in the previous month.

At state levels, the all items inflation year-on-year in July was highest in Kogi (28.45 per cent), Lagos (27.30 per cent), Ondo (26.83 per cent), while Borno (20.71 per cent), Jigawa (20.85 per cent and Sokoto (20.92 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in headline index.

Month-on-month, however, highest increases were observed in Kogi (4.99 per cent), Abia (4.12 per cent), Akwa Ibom (4.07 per cent), while Jigawa (0.16 per cent), Taraba (1.09 per cent) and Yobe (1.10 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in July.

Year-on-year, food inflation was highest in Kogi (34.53 per cent), Lagos (32.52 per cent), and Bayelsa (31.31 per cent), while Jigawa (20.90 per cent), Sokoto (21.63 per cent) and Kebbi (22.45 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in food inflation.

Also, month-on-month, food inflation was highest in Kogi (6.73 per cent), Akwa Ibom (5.64 per cent), and Bayelsa (4.59 per cent), while Taraba (-0.21 per cent), Jigawa (0.28 per cent) and Yobe (0.90 per cent) rec¬orded the slowest rise in the review period.