Also, the recent policies in the financial and energy sector have created the path to further widening of the gap in the months and probably years ahead without any sign of poverty reduction except palliative measures.
They also said that while the poor were still groaning under the existing policies introduced in the early months of the current administration, more of such policies are still being rolled out monthly with indications that many more are still underway in the months if not weeks ahead. Equally, the employees in these sectors have benefited to some extent with average salaries and allowances increase of about 75 per cent during the period.The rich across other sectors have also demonstrated their relative comfort with the current economic environment especially with the unprecedented over-subscription of 254 per cent to the CBN’s Treasury Bill sales three days ago.
“High inflation further exacerbates poverty by reducing the purchasing power of those with fixed incomes. ‘‘These dynamics emphasize the need for policymakers to consider the socio-economic ramifications of their decisions.” “So they have to bear the brunt to a larger extent of the increases in costs, which means that their profit margins have been eroded, and that also means in some cases that they are just struggling to break even.”
“I must say at this point that even those who are in the middle class are also feeling the pains of these reforms.” “That is why we saw many instances of some companies declaring huge losses as a result of these reforms, particularly, the foreign exchange reforms that took place. So, you can say that the rich also cry.