The Federal Government has attributed the increament rise in the cost of fertilizers to factors beyond its control.
The current cost of fertilizer has been reported to have increased to between 110 and 150 per cent.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed put up the defence in a briefing on Thursday in Abuja.
Mohammed said the factors that led to the rise included a three-fold increase in the cost of natural gas, a primary feedstock in fertiliser production and post-COVID-19 shutdowns of key raw materials manufacturing plants.
Other factors identified by the minister were sanctions imposed on Belarus and Russia, occasioned by the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the impact of significant domestic inflation on global and in-country logistics and transportation of fertiliser raw materials.
The minister recalled that Buhari negotiated a fixed price for Phosphate at $290/MT and a fixed discount of $15/MT for Potash from the government of Morocco and Russia, respectively.
He said the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative purchased raw materials at these prices for four years between 2017 and 2020.
Mohammed said from 2021, however, upon the restructuring of PFI, raw material purchases were undertaken at globally-traded prices.
“Phosphate prices increased 32 per cent from $290/MT in 2017 to $1,255.0/MT in 2022, Potash prices rose by 364 per cent moving from $256.0/MT in 2017 to $1,187.5/MT in 2022.
“Urea prices rose by 246 per cent from about $300/MT in 2018 to $1,037.5/MT in 2022.
“Under this development, no magic can keep the price of fertilizer at what it was before the astronomical increase in the cost of production”, he added.
