Hardship: Abaji writes Tinubu, seeks establishment of price regulatory agency

Dr Sultan Abaji has written an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu seeking the establishment of the National Goods and Services Pricing Regulatory Agency (NGSPRA) as part of efforts to nip in the bud the rising prices of goods and services in the country.

He also asked the president to expedite action on the issue of minimum wage, saying the demand by organised labour is a product of inflation in the country.

The letter was addressed to the President and copied to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.

The letter reads in part, “Government needs to do something urgently if only to stop and reverse the increasing prices of essential commodities so the common man can have an easy life.

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“Some countries are putting subsidies on electricity and essential basic commodities to ease the sufferings of their citizens while others are subsidising the basic inputs for manufacturers of these commodities.

“Hence, in Nigeria, subsidies for these commodities would not work but price control will. Your Excellence Sir, I recommend a legislative establishment of the National Goods and Services Pricing Regulatory Agency (NGSPRA) under a Director General who would be answerable to the Honourable Minister of Budget and Economic Planning.

“The agency’s primary objective should be to ensure that all goods and services in Nigeria are coded with a special code number relevant to them for ease of identification.

“These coded goods and services would have a price attached to them individually, which is covered by the law. This means for any single service or item’s price to change, there must be proper legislation to that effect.

“Therefore, no individual, group of people or company has the right to increase the price of any commodity without writing to the agency who would forward the same to the legislators for all the legislative protocols.

“This would mean the request for an increment in any price of goods or services must be debated and passed into law, otherwise no price increase.”