The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has queried the procedure used by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to collate the monthly consumer price index (CPI).
IMF said the data used by the NBS was “severely outdated’.
This comes after NBS stated that Nigeria’s inflation rate soared to 21.82 per cent, surpassing the 21.34 per cent the bureau reported for the month of December 2022.
The IMF revealed that the NBS was still using a basket index from the 2003/2004 National Consumer Expenditure Survey.
The global body suggested that the bureau should switch to the 2018 National Household Livings Standards to reflect current realities.
Aside from IMF, other economic experts have publicly criticised the basket index used by the NBS to calculate the inflation figures.
The Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company, Bismarck Rewane, and a professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, Professor Steve Hanke, have said the inflation rate released by the NBS doesn’t reflect the realities faced by Nigerians.