 Welcome back, it's still Business Insights and plus TV Africa as we look at the latest inflation figures released by the NBS yesterday. On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in June 2023 was 2.13%. This was 0.19% point higher than the rate recorded in May 2023. This means that in June 2023 on average, the general price level was 0.19% higher relative to May. The percentage change in the average CPI for the 12th month period and in June 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous 12 month period was 21.54%, showing a 5% increase compared to 16.54% recorded in June of last year. Now, Economic and Public Affairs Analysts Olajeda joins me now in this discussion. Good morning to you Olajeda, thanks for joining me. Yeah, good morning, thanks for having me. Okay, first of all, because of the relatively hardship that most people went through, some people believe that that 22.79% should be a bit higher than what was announced. What do you really think, Olajeda? Okay, when I sort of figured myself, I felt the same way. We had all anticipated, I figured that would be higher. Higher by virtue of the fact that in June, there were two major policies that kicked in. Number one is the first subsidy removal and the other one is the collapse of the multi-colour change rate. Now, these two policies have implications for average prices in the market therefore we were expecting something much higher than what we got. So initially, I thought, what would be responsible for this? So my mind went to, or could it be the fact that there have been a drop in diesel price of about $200? They are about $600 plus, or could it be LPG? I learned that the price of cooking gas also went up. For those two, while they might affect the energy side of things, how about the food side of another element of the inflation period? Where I learned that the MVS has spoken to why the increase might be much less than both. But let's really talk about what you just mentioned in passing, which was actually food prices. Now, the optic in the inflation rate was largely driven by the food index as food inflation accelerated to 25.25%, especially by the prices of obstacles, which include oil, bread, zeros, fish, potatoes, yum, and other tubers, you know, vegetable, milk, cheese, and even eggs. You know, from what we hear right now, even the bread sellers are increasing their prices. Wallaha, what do we have in our hands? We have a potential food insecurity issue in our hands. If we don't take measures to drive down or to moderate food prices. Like you rightly said, food prices is typically much higher than the composite inflation figure, which means that one way to reduce the composite inflation figure is if we can drive down the food inflation. I believe this is part of what was driving the recent plan to intervene by the federal government of Nigeria. There was this news about the state of emergency and food security. If we were able to actually deal with food matters, we would be able to manage this inflation. Much better than any of the other measures like increasing the MDR of almost every meeting of the MBC, which has had little or no effect on inflation. So if we deal with food matters, we will definitely be able to make a dent in inflation, much more than other measures. We'll talk about the monetary policy measures of the central bank of Nigeria, but just recently President Tinibu plans to deploy savings from the fuel subsidy removal into the agricultural sector to revamp the sector and also grow its contribution to 70% in the long run. How far do you really think that this can actually help out? From the policy statement, it appears that the government does understand the problem and the policy is the policy in the right direction. Tinibu is in the detail of implementation because this is not, sincerely speaking, it's not the first time we are making a right diagnosis of the problem with our food security. So understanding it, rolling out a policy, building a policy around it, is a very good start, but we need to be able to follow through with the implementation as well. That is, it is the implementation that will actually deliver the dividend. But as far as realisation that we don't even farm enough, we want to put in about 500,000 more hectares of farmland in place that our farm production has been seasoned up. We want to be able to produce over a 12-month period. We realise that our yields are horrible, so we want to be able to put fertilizer in place, give farmers access to improved seedlings and at the same time be able to help them with farming practices via education. We understood firmly that even after producing we lose a lot of what we produce to rottenness and not form of decay and destruction because there is a problem with connecting the centres of production to the market where this needs to be concealed. We also have a problem with storage. So the new intervention is talking about storage and other things. There are issues that will help us to achieve food security. We also have to hook this up to industrialisation. To be able to say, look, we need to go beyond producing primary agricultural products, let's be able to add value to our agricultural products and export not just raw commodities of our agricultural products but valuable products that can help us to earn forex. This will ride on the back of the industrialisation agenda and I see the role of power also in that medium. So it's a whole gamut of things to be done and the demo is in the detail as far as implementation is concerned. Moving on now, the highest increases were recorded in the prices of passenger transport by air, gas, vehicles, spare parts, liquid fuel, fuels and lubricant for personal transport equipment, medical services, passenger transport by road. I know this did not really surprise you because Nigerians actually are paid higher last month but the question right now would be the palliative measures that the presidency had talked about when they negotiated with the Nigerian Labour Congress and the TEC. By then Nigerians would have thought that maybe by now there would have been something to cushion the effect of the high cost of transportation. I'm not sure that because there was a deadline at 8 weeks... 8 weeks, yes, yes. Yes, they tried for that committee to submit their reports and all that. I'm not so sure if that deadline has expired already. So we might have to wait a little bit to see what is in there often. Part of what is in that discussion included issues around minimum wage, issues around alternative energy sources for people to be able to use CAG which is said to be more cheaper to power some of the segments of what we currently use, PMS. And several other things. If these things are properly worked out, these are the real palliative if you ask me, not even the sharing of 8,000 naira... 12 million households, yes. Okay, let's talk rights now concerning monetary policy which a whole lot of people believe is not actually working with the inflationary pressure. Just in May, the CBN raised its benchmark lending rates to 18.5%. What should we be doing concerning our monetary policy because over time we keep on increasing and yet inflation is seemingly very stubborn and not responding? Yeah, we need to do much more than using monetary policy. There are other tools that are available to go including the fiscal measures that we can use. The problem is not exactly that people have too much money and therefore if we reduce the amount of money that is available to them we'll be able to curb inflation. That is why it appears as if the monetary policy measures are not strong enough to moderate the inflationary pressure. So we need to look at what is going on in the manufacturing in the trade segment of the economy. Are manufacturers having it easy from whether it is an importation of raw material or in the other cost element that goes into their cost profile? How can we step into that space and make it easier for them to manufacture, create a better business environment where they can thrive? When they try, they will employ more people. When they employ more people, they pay more people. More people are able to spend and conceal. Government is able to earn more taxes and there is a multiply effect on their economy. This will help more than just a push from the monetary side of things. We have to look at what we can do with taxes as well. Rather than talking about adding up to taxes at this time we need to look at taxes from an incentive perspective. How can we give a certain critical segment of the economy certain incentives so that they will behave in a particular manner? And that behavior will help to try the inflation moderation that we seek to achieve. Then the last one on inflation is whatever we can do in the food space will help a great deal because food remains the highest number puller in the content of what goes into the inflation basket. True. Okay, so Bola Honda 22.79% was what we experienced in June. So let's just do a bit of forecast and then extrapolate for July. What do you see happening and how should we be tackling it in the immediate? For instance, you've talked about food. You've talked about taxation. But right now the informal sector might not really get this salary increment that Labour and Federal Government might be working on. So what do we do as we speak in this month of July specifically? Okay, most likely the inflation number in the month of July will be higher than what we have right now. The reason we have a little increase this time around was that MBS uses data up to the middle of the month. So which means that what they used to compute the inflation figure we are talking about in 2.79 was data up until 15th of June. Now 15th of June were the early days of the subsidy reform. Maybe as a 15th, I can't even remember if the collapse of the exchange rate has happened by then. So by the time we are doing the full, in the next inflation figure we can take from middle of June to middle of July. The chances are higher that it might be in the 23% level. So that's what I think. However, what can we begin to do? Some of the things we need to begin to do in number one, let's be able to close out on the discussions that are going on with the tripartite committee of Labour and Government and maybe is the organised private sector. Number two, I love the step taken by the government to suspend the finance act. Let's look within that finance act and see how we can use incentive to drive behaviour rather than just chasing after increment of taxation rate. If we create the right environment, even the mention, the policy direction in law has another way in which it starts to change behaviour before the actual impact. So whatever we can do in this food area, we must do. You just mentioned that poultry people are already complaining because of the price of meat. So we must ask ourselves, in that price of meat space, what can we do? Whatever we do there, we not only affect all things that are related to meat, including the direct consumption. But also affect the price of poultry products. True. All right, thank you so much, Anguola, for the useful insights that you have shared concerning our economic matter, specifically the inflation, which is soaring very high. We do appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. All right, as we go on the show today, the Nigerian economic system is peculiar and does not usually follow the established principles and policies and as such, leaders need to move from the plug-and-play approach in problem sharing. This was the position of the author of MUSE and by the MUSE, Adibola Akindele, at a public presentation which held in Lagos. I'll leave you with details of that report. I'll see you again next time. My name is Justin Akadone. Enjoy the rest of your day. In a world of rapidly moving economic, social and governance parts and a rising uncertainty in governance complexity, finding the synthesis of ideas to help individuals and institutions navigate is needed. In an interview, the author said Nigerians have to learn from those who have heard a history and can bring the stories forward. A lot can be achieved because the Nigerian system, the Nigerian person and the Nigerian system is very peculiar. We are very peculiar to the extent that I don't know of any economic theory. I don't know of any, if any has worked. I don't know of many that have worked for Nigeria, ever since I've become aware. And for as long as we continue to try and do a plug and play model for these theories and these applications are not these things coming from outside, they never solve our problems entirely, they never do. So we have to look for those that have lived the story, that have lived the history, that can bring the history and the story forward and allow this story and history to become what can be useful for the others coming. The panel session saw the discussions draw in on success, wealth and purpose. As comparisons are made on where to draw the lines and what really matters individuals and entrepreneurs alike will reach to understand the purpose which they have been called. Other sessions include except reading from musins to mirrors, which included beyond success to chaos and opportunities among others. What for us is relative, we must have wealth which is also relative in terms of quantities, in terms of numbers, because like I said it's not about money at all it's about how many people so many other factors. For me as a person I derive joy in making other people happy. So success is relative to individuals, to some people it's just about money, to some people it's about luxury, to some people it's about housing it's relative but definitely it is not about money. So to the extent of what it discusses at the panel is getting an alignment between purpose and your goals and then you understand your journey and so you don't spend your journey chasing money, you change purpose as in what do I want to be known for, what do I want to do. Again like I believe it was Dico who spoke about it it is relative as to where you are. Take action because if you don't take action at the end of the day, nothing happens so all these valuable lessons in the book are not going to amounts to anything if those who read the book don't take action. Newsons of the Mirs is a companion of original thought and insightful ideas on leadership, management and life. Justin Nakadoni plus Stephenie's Lagos In a world of rapidly moving economic, social and governance parts and the rising uncertainty in governance complexity, finding a synthesis of ideas to help individuals and institutions navigate is needed. In an interview the author said Nigerians have to learn from those who have heard a history and can bring the stories forward. A lot can be achieved because the Nigerian system, the Nigerian person and the Nigerian system is very peculiar. To the extent that I don't know of any economic theory I don't know of any, if any has worked I don't know of many that have worked for Nigeria, ever since I've become aware. And for as long as we continue to try and do a plug and play model for these theories and these applications are not just coming from outside they never solve our problems entirely they never do. So we have to look for those that have lived the story, that have lived the history, that can bring the history and the story forward and allow the story and history to become what can be useful for the others coming. The panel session saw the discussions Jojo and on success, wealth and purpose. As comparisons are made on where to draw the lines and what really matters, individuals and entrepreneurs alike were wretched to understand the purpose to which they have been called. Other sessions include excerpt reading from musins to lectures which included beyond success to chaos and opportunities among others. What for us is relative we must have wealth which is also relative in terms of quantities in terms of numbers because like I said it's not about money at all it's about how many people so many other factors for me as a person I derive joy in making other people happy success is relative to individuals, to some people it's just about money to some people it's about luxury, to some people it's about housing. It's relative but definitely it is not about money. So to the extent of what they discussed at the panel is getting an alignment between purpose and your goals and then you understand your journey and so you don't spend your journey chasing money you change purpose as in like what do I want to be known what do I want to do again like I believe it was who spoke about it it is relative as to where you are. Take action because if you don't take action at the end of the day nothing happens so all these valuable lessons in the book are not going to amounts to anything if those who read the book don't take action. Musins of the Mears is a companion of original thought and insightful ideas and leadership management and life just in that category plus even these leaders