South Sudan: Prices Go Up Everyday and There Is Nothing We Seem to Do About
It
26 March 2012
Editorial
The nation's capital Juba had a misfortune recently when most parts of its
largest market Konyo-konyo was gutted by fire leaving it a heap of white
ashes.
Thousands of tonnes of products including basic food items such as flour,
beans, oil and others were destroyed in the large stores of the market.
Practically very little was saved from the blaze partly due to lack of
accessibility into the heart of the market by the only tanker of the fire
brigade carrying water to extinguish the raging blaze which continued for
three days.
This fire disaster was said to be the 9th in the history of the market and
the Mayor of Juba City Council Mohammed Al Haj Baballa vowed to reorganize
the market such that it would bear a modern feature with a network of large
roads such that in any even of accidents fire brigade tankers can reach all
parts of the market to perform their work. Lack of planning in the previous
structure of the market and congestion was partly blamed for failure to save
it from burning to ashes.
Although the shop owners of Konyo-Konyo who have lost greatly in form of
goods and even cash because very few are known to be using banks for saving
and cash keeping are determined to reconstruct their shops despite the order
from the mayor to wait for re-planning of the market and reallocation of
plots are determined to restart their ruined businesses from scratches they
are so impatient that they cannot wait for the mayor's programme. For the
business people of Konyo-Konyo either they start again despite all odds or
they suffer because their businesses are their survival. It is either the
mayor acts to demarcate and allocate or the mushrooming of shelters will be
the new sight of Konyo-Konyo.
That said the negative impact of the destruction of the market by fire is
the skyrocketing of prices of almost all items in juba be they edible
materials or non-food items like building products. Destruction of the shops
and stores full of these items has brought about scarcity and businessmen
and women in the smaller markets such as Suk Libya, Jebel, Custom and Juba
cannot meet the high demand of the customers for these items.
The outcome from this situation is the high rise of prices. Unfortunately
our price control agencies cannot do anything good from this situation
because most of the items for sale are brought from the neighbouring
countries of which we are unaware of their production and demand and control
mechanism.
That being the situation of our dilemma, there is nothing we can do about it
and what we can hope for is to wait for more commodities to pour in from the
producing neighbours to stabilize the market prices. Such apathetic
situation requires our planners especially in the agriculture sector to be
more practical when they talk about food security and empower our small
scale growers to do their best to contribute foodstuff in the market of
South Sudan.
It is only when we grow our own food crops that we can direct the pricing
system because then we shall be able to know the law of demand and supply
and determinant factors.
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Received on Mon Mar 26 2012 - 17:29:45 EDT
