By Abiola Olawale
Nigeria’s inflation rate increased to 33.2% in March 2024, the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have revealed.
This represents a 1.5% increase from the 32.7% recorded in February 2024.
In March 2024, the food inflation rate on a month-on-month basis stood at 3.62%, a decrease of 0.17% compared to February 2024, when the rate was 3.79%.
On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.16% points higher compared to the rate recorded in March 2023, which was 22.04%.
The New Diplomat reports that Nigeria’s food inflation figure continues to soar despite the sustained appreciation of the Naira against the Dollar for the past months.
The development also came after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) twice raised interest rates this year to try to get price pressures under control.
It would be recalled that at the end of the 294th MPC meeting held in Abuja on March 26, the apex bank increased the benchmark interest rate by 200 basis points to 24.75 percent, up from the 22.75 percent figure in February.
Furthermore, the `apex bank retained the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 45%- unchanged from its last meeting but increased the CRR of merchant banks from 10% to 14% while retaining the liquidity ratio at 30%.
In his submission, the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso said the increase in the interest rate is part of the CBN’s efforts to tackle inflation and exchange rate fluctuations.
However, Nigerians are yet to see the impact of these policies as prices of food items and other commodities keep rising in the market.
