Why June inflation figure fell below expectation – NBS

The National Bureau of Statistics has stated that the inflation figure released for the month of June did not reflect the anticipated rise by experts as the market survey used to calculate the indices stopped at the middle of the month.

In a terse message on its official Twitter handle on Tuesday, the bureau stated that the figure may not capture the effect of the subsidy removal and currency unification made by the federal government in the second half of the month.

It said; “The June Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers may not fully capture the impact of the fuel subsidy removal and the unification of the exchange rate.

“This is because the data collection for computing the rate for the reference month typically stops around the middle of the month, meaning that the June numbers only reflected approximately two weeks of the policy impact on consumer prices.

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“The full effect of the policy, as relates to prices, can, therefore, not be reflected in June only, but also in subsequent months, based on actual prices collected in market outlets across the country.”

Daily Trust reports that the inflation figure for June was 24.7 per cent, but experts and families expressed doubt on the accuracy of the figure as they say they are currently going through hard times with the skyrocketing prices of goods and services.

A senior economist at the SPM Professionals, Paul Alaje, had told Daily Trust that it was surprising for the inflation to rise a little in the month of June.

Alaje had stated that the impact of fuel subsidy removal and unification of currency had a serious impact on the purchasing power of Nigerians.

“The two coming together, by the end of July, we should be looking at around 25 per cent, though a lot of concerns have been made on the methodology of the NBS and many of us have doubts about the methodology as its sampling size is too small and not in reality.

“I think the current inflation does not reflect the reality of what is going on with Nigerians but at least, it shows the direction and it is telling us it is going further higher at an increasing rate, but the rate is not a reality of what Nigerians are going through.”

He said the government will need to bring some substantial economic policy beyond sharing N500bn to households, which will itself further induce inflation.