Inflation which has maintained an upward trend since the beginning of the year accelerated to 14.7 percent in October as against 13 percent recorded in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed Tuesday.
The NBS in Abuja yesterday indicated that the rise was caused mainly by global increase in food as well as energy prices and remains the highest recorded since December 2005 when inflation settled at 11.6 percent.
“The year on year consumer price level as at October 2008 rose by 14.7 percent. This was higher than the 13 percent observed in September 2008. The corresponding urban and rural indices rose by 13.8 percent and 15.2 percent respectively over the period”, the bureau said.
Investigations by BusinessDay revealed that the present figure is quite a huge leap compared to the single digit rate of about eight percent last year October. It would be recalled that inflation had in June 2008 leapt into a double digit equally on account of prevailing food prices after much hopes that it could be retained at a single digit within the year.
Government had hoped that inflation rate caused mainly by the food crisis could ease with improved rains expected to boost harvest. Observers believe that except a drastic action is taken by the government to boost food production, inflation may continue in this trend with persistent double digit range.
Although food year-on-year index eased by 0.5 percent when compared with the previous September 2008 figure, it rose from a fall of 0.1 percent in October 2007 to 19.2 percent in October 2008.
“The increase in food prices is more pronounced in the prices of staples such as rice, maize and beans. The food inflation rate has been on the decline after July 2008 figure of 20.9 percent. The figure lowered to 18.8 and 17.1 for August and September 2008 respectively before it rose again to 19.2 percent in October 2008”, it disclosed.