Increased road transportation costs responsible for food hike – FG

The Federal Government has identified the hike in road transportation costs as responsible for increase in cost of food items across the country.

This was contained in an interim report submitted by the Presidential Task force on Food to the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday.

At its last meeting, the Federal Executive council meeting council set up a Food task committee to look into the hike in food prices and cause of food wastage in the country.

The committee on Wednesday, submitted an interim report, identifying the major cause of food price increase as the high cost of road transportation and suggesting the use of railway wagons as an alternative

Agriculture Minister is happy to report that there is no food shortage with the country set to experience a bountiful harvest this year.

Council also approved a set of measures to boost food production and attract investment into the Nigerian tomato sub-sector.

Council also approved the Construction of section one of the Ilorin-Omuaran Kabba road in order to complement the ongoing works on the Kabba Egbe road to linking Kwara and Kogi States.

Power, Works and Housing Minister also used the briefing to debunk impressions created by a media report that his Ministry had recently unilaterally approved a project running into billions of naira.

The gradual rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads recently embarked on by the Government is to achieve its ultimate goal of reducing by half, the amount of time spent travelling from one part of the country to the other by 2019.