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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has assured that the the federal government is putting measures in place to address food inflation in the country.
Edun gave the assurance recently at a conference at Abuja, designed to find strategies for managing the country’s resources and assets for the general welfare of the populace.
As part of efforts to alleviate food insecurity, the Minister announced that the federal government has already issued 42,000 metric tonnes of food grains and would be releasing an additional 6,000.
According to him, “At this particular moment, the cost of food and the increase in availability of food is our outermost priority.
“And I would like to remind us that President Bola Tinubu had always said he will not leave the poor, the vulnerable and the weak at times like this.
“He has preciously released 42,000 metric tonnes of food grains and he has a plan to release another 6,000 tons of food grains and this is in addition to measures to ensure that whatever that is in the store, comes out at this important time and we And we expect prices to stabilize and begin to fall in a reasonable period of time, and in the meantime, everything that can be done in the market to put food on the tables of people will be done no matter what it takes.
“It is important to remember that we inherited rising prices. So, we are committed to breaking the cycle of inflation.”
Edun further noted that the federal government was auditing the N22.7 trillion Ways and Means loans, noting that the report would be made available soon.
Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the CBN provides short-term financing to cover the government’s budget shortfalls.
“The Central bank has led the way in pointing out that the ways and means has to be tailored down, and that is what we need to agree with,” he added.
