Some petty traders who spoke to AYV have appealed to the Parliament of Sierra Leone to speedily tackle the rapid hike in price of basic commodities, especially cooking condiments.
The women have confirmed that cooking condiments prices are rapidly increasing week in and week out, adding that the rapid hike in the prices of both local and imported cooking condiments is as a result of the inflation of the United States dollars which has forced the leones to a drastic fall in terms of value.
Some of the women said they use to buy locally grown cooking condiments at a lesser price but further explained that the prices of both local and foreign cooking condiments have been on a rapid hike in the last few months.
One of the women, Sarah Dumbuya said the current price of a gallon of the imported cooking oil shows some 110% increase from the price the much-needed commodity is being sold previously.
She said a gallon of the imported cooking oil last month was 110 new leones, this week it is now between 115 and 120 new leones as a result of the frequent increment of the dollar to the leone.
Sarah went on to explain that despite the rapid hike on the prices of both local and foreign oil, “we are selling as we buy from the shop, we now sell a pint of local cooking oil at 10 new leones while the foreign cooking oil is being sold at 12 new leones, the milk cup is sold at 5 new leones and 6 new leones whilst we retail the tomato cup of local and imported cooking oil at 3 and 5 new leones respectively”.
She said: “This inflation of the dollar needs urgent redress just as the price of fuel has begun to decrease, we are using this unique opportunity you have accorded us to assess how we buy and sell and sell red palm oil and imported oil which has not got any stable price at the market for the past weeks. We call on the ministry of trade and partners to do the needful and bail us from this suffering in the form of trading from which we now struggle to even make a meager profit.”
