Wednesday, 13 May 2015

Fuel scarcity pushes up food prices



The continuous scarcity of refined petroleum products, especially petrol, and the attendant high cost of procuring them have pushed up the prices of essential food items in most parts of the country.

Traders attribute the rise in food prices to the high cost of transporting the produce from the farm to the market coupled with high exchange rate of the naira against major international currencies and seasonal availability of some of the produce.

A surveyed the prices of various food items in some major markets in different parts of Lagos State, discovered that items like beans, tomatoes, red pepper, onion, orange and maize had become more expensive in the past two weeks due to the acute scarcity of fuel nationwide.

Even though the Federal Government has paid over N150bn to the marketers of petroleum products out of the outstanding subsidy claims and the strike by tanker drivers and their employers has been called off, very few filling stations are selling petrol to motorists.

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