|
|
Cameroon: South West - No Easy Task For Consumers
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
28 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008
Nkeze Mbonwoh
Is the phenomenal price hikes on basic commodities a problem to be solved or a mystery to live with ? The question hangs on many lips in Buea and the rest of the South West Province as prices continue their journey up the sky.
This reporter walked Buea streets last weekend and visited the five basic commodity markets of Great Soppo, Small Soppo, Buea Town, Muea and Bokwaongo. Both buyers and sellers seem to agree that the price increase and commodity scarcity draw their roots far away from the area.
Rice, sugar, mackerel fish, ground nut oil, flour, milk and tin tomatoes; all fall in the inevitable category of items that must find a place on every household table. Not all of the above are produced locally, anyway !
According to Mr Ewane Ngeng, South West Provincial Delegate of Commerce based in Limbe, a commendable effort has been made at his level to down scale many of the prices. Food items such as Chinese rice from CFA 14,000 a bag of 50 kilogrammes to CFA 13,650. Pakistanese Beta rice from CFA 17,000 to CFA 16,000. A 50 kg bag of flour from CFA 20,500 to CFA 19,180; sugar from CFA 700 to CFA 650 (1 kg). A tablet of laundery soap from CFA 350 to CFA 275. These improved prices are still far above the cost of the same commodities known before December 2008.
There is however no assurance that the reduced prices are respected uniformly. For example, the South West Regional Chief of the National Institute of Statistics, Mr Chounbang Celestin, in their usual survey in Buea markets, noted in the Great Soppo market that one kg of sugar rose from CFA 650 in March to CFA 700 in April. At the Buea Town market, the price of rice has increased. "Things are really rough," Mr Chounbang told Cameroon Tribune in his Clerks Quarters office in Buea.
The Regional Chief advised that in order to have a clearer idea of the prices index in Buea, one has to multiply sample values by 1000 and divide it by the total weight registered. Going by the above formula, one can get to the price of CFA 200 for every 1.7 kilogramme of plantain for a given period in the area.
Expected consequences
Apart from price swelling, scarcity is another part of the Octopus-like problem. By the time you prolong your haggling with the seller, a more viable buyer comes after you and pays the price up-front. If you argue, they tell you that you risk not finding the commodity the next day. A glaring example is cement that is not available in Buea at the main COGENI depot. If you ask when it may be available, the reply is "we don't know".
|
Experts have hinted some expected consequences of such market uncertainty. These include poor feeding and attendant diseases, monetary inflation, etc. As a means of curbing the trend, authorities have seized some cement more than once and sold to the public at regular prices. While waiting for things to return to square one, the faces of many are fraugt with frowns and sighs.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Cameroon Tribune. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
