Lagos, June 3, 2023 – Dr. Yemi Kale, a former Statistician-General of Nigeria, has predicted that inflation rate may rise to 30 percent by June end with the removal of petrol price subsidy.
The inflation rate currently stands at about 22 percent as at April end, the third consecutive rise 2023 and the highest in the last 17 years.
Kale announced his prediction in a Tweet on Friday night, indicating that the removal of subsidy would worsen the living conditions of Nigerians.
The removal of the subsidy on petrol will, particularly heighten energy costs, a well-known driver of inflation in Nigeria.
Prices of gas and other fuels have been on the rise in the last eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy in his inaugural address to the nation on Monday, May 29, while the NNPCL introduced a new petrol price template on Wednesday, May 31.
With the new petrol price template, the least price of petrol is N488 per litre in Lagos.
These high prices have precipitated labour crisis across the country.
With the rejection of the petrol subsidy across the country, the federal government on Wednesday called labour to a negotiation meeting which ended in a deadlock.
Not done, the Nigerian Labour Congress, the umbrella body of all industrial unions in the country, has fixed Wednesday, June 7, for the commencement of a nationwide protest closure of all government establishments across the country.
Addressing the press on the outcome of the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the labour congress in Abuja on Friday, Peter Ajaero, its National President, said the new price for petrol as announced by NNPCL was illegal as it was fixed by a private company.
He said that the federal government must also be properly constituted with all the complementary structures of government, before the NLC would meet with it for any negotiation on petrol price subsidy. (GBN)
