BY: HAJA HAWA KOROMA
For the past few months there has been a major dilemma in the rapid increase in prices of goods and other necessary commodities in the country. Price control has been a major problem we are dealing with right now, as prices of goods and other important commodities are rapidly increasing by the day.
The lack of price control has affected and is still affecting the day to day lives of every citizen in the country. The fuel crisis is the highlight of it all as fuel shortage is affecting different aspects of our daily lives.
Fuel scarcity and the increment in fuel prices is now a global issue, majority of the countries including the first world countries are affected with this due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Some people are blaming the government of the increase in fuel price but it is not the governments fault as other countries are going through the same.
Now that the fuel scarcity has become a major issue, despite the fact that the government released a Press Release stating that the new fuel price is now Le12, 000, some of the fuel stations and people that have fuel out of selfishness and greed are making use of the opportunity to sell the fuel way more than the price the government had given.
Some of them are even advocating for the fuel price to get to Le15, 000 for their own selfish and personal gain.
Most of our problems are caused by our fellow citizens because majority of them always uses every bad situation for their own personal benefits. When the government announced the increment in fuel prices a Press Release was issued alongside the specific amount of transport fare to be paid for specific destinations, but the commercial vehicle operators are not adhering to this.
There is no price control in transportation fare, commercial vehicle drivers, tricycle riders and bike riders are using the situation of the fuel scarcity and addition in price to impose their prices on passengers. Most people do not have a choice but to adhere to their demands because they are in need of their services.
Because of this, many students and pupils have to trek to go to school and classes. Most of these pupils and students are not given additional money for transportation fare and lunch as most of their parents cannot afford to give them more than what they have been used to giving them.
Therefore, the increase in transportation for most of them end up trekking to go or return from school otherwise they would spend all their lunch money on transportation fare and won’t have nothing left to eat for lunch.
Most people now spend a bulk of their salaries on transportation fare to and from work as some resides far from the office and in doing so they aren’t left with much to attend to other monetary responsibilities.
Everything is rapidly increasing in prices but the salaries of workers remains the same and this is not good for anyone because they spend more with the same amount of salary they have been earning.
Buying foodstuffs at the market are also a major crisis. Many people are unable to prepare meals in their homes because all the foodstuffs are now so expensive for the average Sierra Leonean to afford. Some people can only afford to prepare meals for their families on a weekend as that is what they can afford.
90% of the average Sierra Leoneans prepare their sauces for two or more days, only a few can afford to prepare fresh meals everyday due to the rapid increase of prices in foodstuffs. Some can only afford to live on rice without sauce.
This has led to many young children engaging in petty crimes, some of the girls are taken advantage of by people who give them small amount of money for food in exchange to sleep with them all because of hunger and starvation. If the prices of foodstuffs were not that expensive the lame would be able to afford something to sustain themselves and their families for the day.
This lack of price control in the country has affected so many other sectors, it has even depreciated the value of money because monetary matters that were used to be settled with a small amount of money now requires double or triple that amount in order to solve them.
