A destroyed refinery By Favour Ifeoluwa & Akinola Ajibade The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited( NNPCL) says it has destroyed 134 illegal refineries in the last few weeks. Also, the company said 63 illegal pipeline connections were uncovered during the the weeks . The corporation, In a visual report, stated that at about 2 am on Sunday, a joint team of security agents discovered a large wooden boat illicitly loading stolen crude oil from Barge AGS01 within the OML 18 operating area, noted intelligence report a large wooden wooden boat was caught receiving crude oil from the barge. According to the state-owned oil firm, while the barge was towed away with a tugboat in custody, five speedboats used in towing the large wooden boat to the illegal loading site were also detained and the particulars of the tugboats and barge used for the operation were reportedly seized for further investigation. It further said that two large boats, which involve
By Favour Ajibade
The current spate of inflation is weakening purchasing power of citizens, eroding incomes and culminated in increase in poverty level, the Chief Executive Officer, Centre For Promotion Of Private Enterprise,Dr.Muda Yussuf,has said.
Nigeria's inflationary rates stood at 20.77 per cent in September before it jumped to 21.09 in October 2022
Inflation is also contributing to the escalation of production costs which negatively impacts profitability,he said in his comment on October inflation in the country.
According to him,the development also accounts for erosion of shareholder value in many businesses and weakening of investors’ confidence in the country.
Headline inflation accelerated to 21.09% in as against 20.77 in September.
On a month-on-month assessment, there was a decline of 0.11% in the headline inflation. It declined from 1.36% in September to 1.24% in October. Food inflation maintained its upward trajectory, accelerating to 23.72 with a month on month decline of 0.21%. Core inflation similarly spiraled to 17.76% in October.
Yussuf said it was evident Nigeria is yet to see an abatement to the key factors fueling inflation which are global and domestic in nature.
He said:”They are a combination of structural and policy issues.These factors include the depreciating exchange rate, rising transportation costs, logistics challenges, forex market illiquidity, hike in diesel cost, climate change, insecurity in many farming communities and structural bottlenecks to production.
“These are largely supply side and policy concerns. Monetary policy tightening in most economies around the world, especially the leading economies, is also driving imported inflation and the depreciation in the exchange rate.The accelerated growth in fiscal deficit financing by the CBN is heightening liquidity in the economy with consequences for soaring inflation”
He reasoned that tackling inflation requires urgent government intervention to address the challenges bedeviling the supply side of the economy, addressing production and productivity constraints, fixing the dysfunctional forex policy, and institution of fiscal reforms to curb escalating deficit spending.
He added: To give producers and citizens some relief, the government could tweak the tariff policies by granting concessionary import duty on intermediate products for industrialists, especially those in the food processing segments of the agriculture value chain”
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