By Sainabou Sambou
The Minister of Trade has been challenged to intervene and control the wave of price of commodities has Ramadan starts.
According to market survey and remarks of not only the buyers but sellers as well, instead of prices to go down it rather increasing every day. Month of Ramdan is identified as period of more expenditures as many people especially Muslims do spend a lot of money on different things ranging from procuring of food items, buying of other materials to equip and decorate houses for the month, organising iftar, and at the same time fending for the family when it is getting towards ending of Ramadan celebration which include Night of Destiny and Eid-il-Fitr called ‘Koriteh.’
Speaking to some people randomly in Greater Banjul Area, Mammie Favor wants the Minister of Trade to intervene and introduce price control not just for the Month of Ramadan alone but for onward transaction.
In this month of Ramadan, she said people will only depend on Allah’s mercy “because everything has increased in the market. To break it down some prices of the essential food items in the market before the Easter celebration, a bag of local onions was D400 but now it has increased to D550, the bag of Irish potato was D425 but now D500 and 20 litres of vegetable oil was D1350 but now goes for D1425, this is wholesale prices.”
Mamme has been selling in the market since 2005 saying for the past 3, 5 years “I wonder what will happen as Ramadan continues if the prices of commodities are still not reduce,’ she lamented.
Getting money now, she stressed, is very difficult, “I think the Ministry of trade should do something and come out with a price control. Sellers/traders are just fixing prices anyhow without taking into consideration the condition of anyone as they only care about profits.”
However, she noted that some of the wholesalers are manipulating the market prices as they are calculating profit of the retailers to fix price “without consider our suffering to pay rent, tax, and transport among others.”
Fatou Njie another retailer urged the Ministry of Trade especially the Minister to take action in the matter of price control, “we cannot continue like this.”
Madam Jarju an old woman – “I have been selling in this market since first Republic, though prices used to increase but things were not as expensive like as they are nowadays because now there is nothing like control of prices or sympathy from anyone.”
Mr M Sarr remarks was a bit differ saying the difficulties, in his own opinion, come from the port “because they changed the container owners, a huge amount of money and if everything goes well at the port the price of commodities will cheap.”
Like others, he called on the Minister of Trade and his Ministry to do something to intervene because it is Ramadan and things should be easy not hard.