Bismarck Rewane, a popular economist and the Executive Director of Financial Derivatives has alleged that some civil servants bought 50kg bags of rice at N40,000 and resold it at N85,000.
Rewane disclosed this on Thursday in an interview with Channels Television.
According to him, the price of rice which he described as a ‘Parallel market’ increased by 3.62 percent to N85,000 from 83,000 despite the government’s subsidized price of N40,000.
“Our team went into the market yesterday (Wednesday ) the price of rice coincidently went up by 3.62 percent to N85,000.
“This is happening at the time the federal government is selling rice to public servants at N40,000 per 50-kilogram bag.
“While in what I can now describe as the parallel market for rice stood at N85,000.
“What happens is that the civil servant will buy at N40,000 per bag and sell at N85,000, that is inefficient”, he said.
This comes as the federal government on Thursday announced the suspension of the sale of 50kg bags of rice to civil servants at N40,000.