NBS, economists disagree over falling consumer prices in June

Economists yesterday faulted National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that consumer prices fell in the month of June.

The experts, who spoke in Abuja, contended that Nigeria at the moment had not got an economy or a direction from where the result would have emanated from.

According to the NBS, the consumer price index, (CPI) which measures inflation increased by 11.22 per cent (year-on-year) in June. This is 0.18 per cent points lower than the 11.40 per cent recorded the previous month.

The document also revealed that increases were recorded in all the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICO) divisions that yielded the headline inflation index.

However, a Development Economist and National Coordinator, Research and Technical, Coalition of Scholars for Alternative Development Agenda for Nigeria (COSADAN), Dr. Emmanuel Anoliefo, declared that because the country does not have an economy in the strict sense of the word, it was illogical for the NBS or the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to continue reeling out data from a rather non-existing country.

He said: “ I do not believe those data because Nigeria does not have an economy. What we have in Nigeria is a market for industrialised nations of the world. So can you be generating data out of nothing?”

Anoliefo further explained that the nation’s investment climate was over-exposed to foreign investors and as such, the country cannot be boasting of having an economy.

He added that the situation has continued that way due to resistance to new ideas by the ‘all-knowing’ bureaucrats.

Another Development Economist and former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of one of the existing commercial banks in the land, who craved anonymity, aligned with Aoliefo, stating: “Which data are you talking about and from where? How can you talk of data when the country has no economic direction?

“I have never seen a senseless government like the current one. No ministers, no advisers, no direction and some people are churning out data. From where?

“There is nothing left that we have not advised this government, but it is clear that they are not ready to listen. I am tired.”

The NBS further declared that on a month-on-month basis, the headline index increased by 1.07 per cent in June, 0.04 per cent rate lower than the 1.11 per cent achieved in May.