The World Bank has said the Nigerian Government failed to make a concerted effort to curb inflation in the year 2021 which has resulted in pushing about eight million more Nigerians below the poverty line. This was reported by the Global Apex bank as ‘Nigeria Development Update’ in its latest edition interim report. The statement was quoted as, “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.
The report further stated that “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.”
Therefore, World Bank warned that failure to take decisive action against the inflation by the Nigerian government, an average rate of inflation in the year 2022 as single-digit predicted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may not be feasible.
The statement said, 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 percent by the end-2022.
It explained that “The inflation rate has not fallen to 9 percent since 2014, but in a hypothetical scenario where the inflation rate would have been close to the CBN’s goal of 9 percent in 2020 and 2021, the consumption level of the average Nigerian would have been at least 15 percent higher today.”
Recently, the CBN had predicted that the Nigerian inflation rate for the year 2022 may drop to a single digit if its recent policies are fully implemented.
On the contrary, a United States-based magazine, Global finance, throw its weight behind the World Bank saying the CBN has failed to tame inflation to stop the Naira from sliding backward against the dollar.
The World Bank released a shocking revelation that Naira may be the worst currency in the year 2022 globally and it threatens the purchasing power of households.
The report further predicted that the Nigerian currency may be the seventh-highest inflation rate amongst the sub-Saharan African countries in the year 2022.
