WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-04-25 Time: 08:53:17 Posted By: News Poster
Kampala – For the past three years, 37-year-old mother of three Fatuma Ahmed has been making enough money to support her family by selling tea and coffee on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Not anymore.The sudden increase in food prices, including tea and coffee, is making it very difficult for her to stay in business.
“I cannot afford my own place so I share a room with my two sisters and their four children,” Ms Ahmed says. “The prices of tea, coffee and kerosene fuel have increased substantially over the past few months and so I find it very difficult to continue in business.”
Two months ago, the price of a kilo of coffee in Ethiopia was $3.45, but now it has gone up to $7.85. Fatuma says she cannot pass on the cost to her customers because they would not be able to afford it.
“Since the increases in the cost of food items, I don’t have as many customers because now people are considering tea and coffee as luxury items,” she says. “I used to earn an average of $1.80 per day but today, I only make about $1 per day. After deducting my expenses I barely have enough to feed my kids. If things continue like this, I will have to find other ways of making a living.”
Fatuma does not want to talk about those “other ways.” Over the past six months, the devaluation of the local currency against the dollar by almost 17 per cent, coupled with a 40 per cent increase in fuel prices, has led to a serious hike in food prices making it harder for millions of Ethiopians like Fatuma to make ends meet.
During the month of February, the cost of living across Ethiopia escalated further with inflation rate reaching 16.5 per cent; more than double the September 2010 level.
Neighbouring Sudan is not doing any better. Ali Adam, 47, a grocery store owner in Khartoum says his grocery is no longer making profits and he has fewer customers queuing up for goods. He blames it on rising transport costs, a result of increased fuel prices, which are seriously eating into his profits.
“The price of many goods has almost doubled in recent weeks,” Adam says. “A 20-litre jerry can of cooking oil is no longer affordable to most consumers because its price has almost doubled from $25 two months ago to $42 today.”
The situation is similar for Kagabo, 40, a trader in Burundi who mainly deals in cassava flour. He says his sales have declined by half and blames the fuel prices for his troubles. “I used to sell more than 120 kilos of cassava flour but now I sell less than 60 kilos per day,” he says. “I had to increase my sale price because of the increased transport costs and now very few people are buying.”
John, a taxi driver in Burundi concurs: “We used get more than 20 customers before noon, because all officers and business men were travelling by taxi within the city of Bujumbura, but now very few of them can afford a taxi….We used to get more than US$25 per day but now it is a miracle if we get even $8.”
Burundi’s fuel prices have tripled over the last six months. The situation is the same across Eastern Africa. A prolonged drought combined with a sharp spike in fuel prices has not only affected businesses but the livelihood of millions of families. Most countries have been hit by inflation and their currencies have depreciated greatly against the US dollar.
In Uganda, for example, inflation has shot up almost two-fold over the last month to 11.1 per cent, up from 6.4 per cent in February 2011. Fuel prices have increased by over 50 per cent from USh2,300 ($1) per litter of petrol to USh4,000 ($1.70) in over two months.
These combined hits have produced desperate measures. Specioza Ndagire, a fruit vendor in Kampala’s Nakasero market is planning to return to the village because she can no longer afford to live in the city. She has been selling local and imported fresh fruits for the past 10 years. Her stall has boxes of imported apples and oranges from South Africa, and local paw-paws, bananas, water melons, and pineapples.
“Food has become extremely expensive and no one is interested in buying it,” she says. “I got my fruits on Monday, but up to now (Wednesday) I have not even sold half of them and yet before, they would only last a day then I’d re-stock.”
Ndagire says a box of South African apples has almost doubled in price from USh.80,000 ($35) to USh130,000 ($56). This has meant that she has had to increase the price per apple.
As a non-essential food item, most people have opted to stop buying, she says Ndagire is now contemplating closing her business because of the rise in overheads. Her rental costs for a stall in the market have risen from USh100,000 ($43) to USh150,000 ($64) in the last two months. She blames it all on the increased cost of living which has been driven by inflation, increases in food prices caused by both drought and high transport costs, and the increase in fuel prices.
Sarah Birungi, 48, the caretaker of Eno Restaurant in Kampala says she also is feeling the full scale impact of the crisis. A bunch of Matooke (green bananas), the staple food for most Ugandans in the central region, has doubled and in other cases even tripled ranging from USh25,000 ($11) to USh50,000 ($22) up from USh12,000 ($6) in December last year.
Tilapia fish, a favourite of many people at her restaurant, has doubled to USh20,000 ($9) per average sized fish from USh10,000 ($5) a month ago. However, despite the increase in prices, she has not yet increased the price of a plate of food because she fears she will lose customers and ultimately her business.
Birungi’s dilemma is similar to that of Madamu, a widow, mother of five and trader in Burundi who says her government is taking up the little money she has remaining in taxes. “I can no longer make ends meet because I used to earn enough money for my children’s education and pay my water electricity bills. Now it seems that all I earn is for the government taxes.”
To demonstrate the impact on families, many are now unable to pay their bills. In most countries the impact of the increased food and fuel prices is hurting the poorest of the poor. More households are spending a higher proportion of their limited incomes on food while at the same time they have lowered consumption to essentials. In countries like Sudan, it is a common phenomenon to see women selling tea in the doorways of local shops, behind buildings and under trees.
Halima Abbas, 42, is one of those women who sells tea to earn an income for her family. She said this seemed like her only option after her husband fell ill.
“My husband is sick and has occasional work as a casual labourer on construction sites,” she said. “The recent increase in food price has forced us to feed our four children only one meal a day. We eat only what we can afford to buy and I can’t remember the last time we ate meat or fruits.”
Further south in Juba, Dick Mugwere, 34, who runs a small restaurant, says vegetable prices have doubled and prices for other food items such as beef and rice increased by more than 30 per cent following the devaluation of the pound against the dollar and the rise in fuel prices. A litter of diesel goes for 3.50 Sudanese pounds ($2) up from 2.50 in December last year.
The restaurant relies on imported food. To make a small profit, Mugwere raised the price of a meal in his restaurant by 30 percent, which lost him a large number of customers. “These days,” he says, “I spend about 250 Sudanese pounds ($68) to prepare lunch but I hardly get my money back.”
Francis Gikara, 58, a taxi driver in Nairobi, Kenya, has the same story. He says that fuel has increased by a whopping KSh20 ($.25 cents) and is now KSh102.40 ($1.20) from KSh80 (about $1) a few months ago.
“I’m not making money anymore,” he says. “I can’t charge my clients more and traffic jams are making it worse because my vehicle is consuming more fuel. I am also not getting enough clients because they don’t have money. Everyone is crying because fuel and food prices are high.”
Gikara says he believes, apart from the spike in international oil prices caused by instability in Middle East, his government is taking a lot of taxes from fuel. He believes that things would be better if the government reduced the taxes on fuel. (Source: World Bank)
Original date published: 23 April 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201104250327.html?viewall=1