World Bank Blames FG Over Inflation, Poverty In Nigeria

The World Bank has blamed Federal Government (FG) of Nigeria for the inflation and subsequent poverty in the country, saying the Government didn’t do the needful to check it.
In its latest edition of “Nigeria Development Update” report, 2021, the Washington-based bank said the Government did not make any committed effort to curb inflation in 2021.
This, it stated, is in spite of the fact that inflation shock pushed an estimated eight million Nigerians below the poverty line.
“Double-digit inflation rates are depressing economic activity and exacerbating poverty. Rising food prices are eroding household purchasing power, and we estimate that during 2020 and 2021, the ‘inflation shock’ alone pushed about eight million more Nigerians below the poverty line.
“We have revised our inflation forecast upwards from our June projection because (i) the inflation rate is declining more slowly than initially expected, and (ii) during 2021 the government did not take concerted action to curb inflation”, the report stated.
The World Bank, therefore, warned that without any decisive action, the average inflation rate would not reach the single-digit target of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the end of 2022.
“Without decisive action, the average inflation rate for 2021 will exceed that for 2020 and will be unlikely to approach the CBN’s target range of 6–9 per cent by end-2022.
“The inflation rate has not fallen to 9 per cent since 2014, but in a hypothetical scenario where the inflation rate would have been close to the CBN’s goal of 9 per cent in 2020 and 2021, the consumption level of the average Nigerian would have been at least 15 per cent higher today”, it stated.
Recall that the CBN had recently projected that the country’s inflation rate would drop to single digit in 2022, with the full implementation of its recent policies designed to boost different sectors of the economy.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s stance is coroborated by “Global Finance”, a United States-based magazine, which stated that the CBN had failed to curb rising inflation and stop the naira from sliding against the dollar.
Nigeria, World Bank emphasized, “might have one of the highest inflation rates globally in 2022, with increasing prices diminishing the welfare of Nigerian households”, the report said.
It stated further that Nigeria is also projected to have the seventh-highest inflation rate among sub-Saharan African countries this year.