PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has accused those he termed corrupt middlemen as behind the sudden spiral in food prices at a time when the economy is already mired in a slowdown occasioned by the global coronavirus situation.
Buhari said the activities of “corrupt” middlemen (with many of them discovered to be foreigners) and other food traders who serve as the link between farmers and consumers have been found to be systematically creating an artificial scarcity so that they can sell at higher prices.
Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President disclosed this in a statement.
Shehu stated that the President had already begun looking and putting in place measures to ameliorate the situation as he had raised some of the issues with the various food producer associations involved, particularly those of rice and other grains.
He said with their cooperation, the high food prices should soon be a thing of the past.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed the concern of his administration about the sudden spiral of food prices, at a time when the economy is already mired in a slowdown occasioned by the global coronavirus situation. The president assures Nigerians that the situation is transient. His administration has already begun looking and putting in place measures to ameliorate the situation,” Shehu’s said in the statement.
“While providence has been kind to us with the rains and as such an expectation that a bumper harvest would lead to crashing of food prices and ease the burdens on the population, government’s concern is that the exploitative market behaviour by actors has significantly increased among traders in the past few years and may make any such relief a short-lived one.”
He remarked that “this year has indeed tested us in ways that globalisation has never been tested since the turn of the century. These challenges have disrupted lives and supply chains all over the world, and Nigeria has not been spared.”
“The effect has been deeply felt in the delays encountered in procurement of raw materials for local production of fertilizer (damaging standing crops before harvest) and the speculative activities by a number of rice processors who are ready to pay for paddy at any price to keep their mills running non-stop,” he added.
In dealing with the problems, Shehu disclosed that the administration has, in line with its ease of doing business mantra, avoided imposing stockholding restrictions, in order not to discourage investments in modern warehousing and cold storage.
“The president has just approved the release of food items from the strategic reserves, including 30,000 tons of maize to animal feeds producers to ease the high cost of poultry production.”
“In addition, investments in the agro-allied sector by the private sector will significantly increase domestic production of farming inputs especially fertilizer, further crash prices, create employment and ease the pressure on our foreign reserves.”
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