Barely 24 hours after the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, reported a sustained decrease in inflation rate, the Bureau, Wednesday, reported that transport fare was moving in opposite direction, with the average fare paid by commuters for bus, air, water and motorcycle (Okada) journeys, rising for the fourth consecutive month in April 2018.
The NBS stated this in its Transport fare watch April 2018 report.
Data by the NBS showed that average fare paid by commuters for motorcycle recorded the highest increase, month-on-month ( MoM) in April, followed by fare for bus within the city, fare for water way transport, fare for bus intercity and fare for air transport respectively.
The average fare paid by passengers for journey by motorcycle increased by 5.70 percent while that of intra-city bus journey increased by 3.88 percent and water way fare increased by 3.56 percent.
States with highest intra-city bus journey fare, according to the report, were Abuja FCT (N325.00), Cross River (N280.00) and Abia (N240.00) while states with lowest intra-city bus journey fare were Bauchi (N90.00), Anambra (N91.10) and Rivers (N100.20).
“Average fare paid by commuters for bus journey intercity increased by 3.40 percent MoM and 13.91 percent YoY to N1,722.86 in April 2018 from N1,668.56 in March 2018. States with highest bus journey fare intercity were Abuja FCT (N4, 000.00), Adamawa (N3,200.00) and Sokoto (N2,700.22) while states with lowest bus journey fare within city were Bauchi (N925.00), Enugu (N1000.01) and Yobe (N1050.21).
NBS had earlier reported that inflation rate declined again by 0.86 basis points to 12.48 percent in April, 2018, the 15th consecutive month decline so far.