Yemi Obafemi
The Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Bismarck Rewane, has attributed the high cost of beans to recent flooding and hike in petrol price.
According to the economist, the recent surge in petrol prices – from around N600 to N1,000 per litre – has driven up the costs of transporting agricultural produce from farms to markets.
He disclosed this on Thursday,while speaking on Channels Television’s Business Morning segment of Sunrise Daily breakfast programme.
“Flooding has destroyed a lot of goods,” Rewane said, adding that the costs of moving agricultural produce from farms to the markets have also gone up due to a recent hike in petrol prices — from around N600 to about N1,000 per litre.”
Rewane said despite marginal declines in prices of other food commodities, bean prices have seen a significant increase.
He said: “We’ve seen onions come down sharply to N115,000, and rice has also come down to N110,000; it was as high as N120,000. The commodity that is surprising to everybody is beans; beans has gone out of storage and out of reach.
“For now, despite everything, we think that inflation will still increase. Food inflation in particular will increase; headline inflation will increase to 34% but this is only temporary. When the imported commodities that we are going to enjoy the duty waivers come into the country, those prices will start to reduce.”
