The Accord Party has called on President Bola Tinubu’s government to intensify efforts to stabilise the country’s commodities prices.

The party’s Lagos chair, Dele Oladeji, made the call in an interview on Wednesday in Lagos.

Mr Oladeji said Nigerians were seriously anticipating the reversal of rising prices of consumer goods and food items in the country.

He called on the government to investigate all contributory factors to inflation and intensify efforts to stabilise commodity prices.

“To crash the prices of consumer goods and food items, the plethora of high import duties, levies, and fees at the port, road, and markets have to be revisited, reviewed, slashed, or removed. Many Nigerians have always wondered why the price of goods is not reducing to reflect the crash in the dollar rate against the naira.

“The reason is that the dollar rate is just one of the several factors that affect trade and production, without a slash in or removal where necessary, of persisting high import duties on production materials and machinery.

“With the high levies and fees from local governments on goods in transit, warehouses, and those in markets, prices of consumer goods will remain high and continue to rise, in reaction to these plethora high fees and levies,” Mr Oladeji said.

According to him, a cursory tax holiday and rebate to some manufacturers only enrich the hyper-rich industrialists and have zero impact on the general populace.

“Such tax rebates and tax holidays should come with a conditional agreement to subsidise prices of the produce.

“The federal government has to look more into and resolve these other contributory factors to create respite and a reversal of rising prices in consumer goods and food items,” he said. 

(NAN)