The Presidential Task Force on Food Security recently set up by the Federal Government has identified reasons for the rising prices of foodstuff across the country.
The Task Force yesterday presented an interim report to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). Briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of council meeting, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said the committee realised that there were no shortage of food, but the prices were unaffordable to Nigerians.
He said part of the crisis were the issues of high cost of transportation from places of production to the market. He said: “One of the things we found out is that the cost of transportation is becoming extremely high, especially because most of our transportation is by road and diesel prices have gone up and trucks are finding it difficult to move from place to place at old prices.”
To bring down the cost of transportation, Ogbeh said: “We considered the following alternatives: using railway wagons along the current railway network.
As we did before when we moved cattle from North-West to Lagos, we brought down the cost and avoided the multiple taxation on transporters by local governments which delay movement.
“We have decided to work with the state governments and the police to reduce delays. “We are going to adapt what they have in Ivory Coast.
Trucks carrying foods are given labels. In fact, in Ivory Coast, they cannot be stopped for more than 10 minutes anywhere.
“Finally, we shall be looking into our reserves if, in the next few days the situation persist, to see what we can bring out to lower the prices because another bumper harvest will be coming up again at the end of March.”
Minister of Power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, said the Council approved the construction of Ilorin- Omu Aran-Kabba Road, Section 1 in order to complement ongoing works on the Kabba-Egbe Road to link Kwara and Kogi states at the cost of N21 billion.
