October 8, 2021
By Hafsatu Z Bangura
The Minister of Trade and Industry Dr. Hinga Sandy at a presser on the 7th of October on the hiking of prices of Goods and Commodities in the Country has blamed importers regarding the increase in freight charges which is deemed responsible for the inflationary trend of prices of goods and services.
He made this disclosure at the weekly press conference held at the Ministry of Information and Communications Youyi Building in Freetown.
He said as a government when prices of goods are on the increase especially in basic commodities it is of a great concern to the Ministry.
He said over the years there haven’t been much focus on the industry or concern as such situations continue unabated but added that with the continued efforts of importers of basic commodities to the people as 80-90% of rice is being imported, whiles adding that the sugar, the fuel, the cloth, we wear are all being imported.
He said Manufacturing was Meagerly contributing to the GDP of the country that was about 2% but with efforts from the Ministry, the present Minister of Trade and Industry has increased from 2% gradually as in the last world bank report which states that manufacturing is now contributing to 8% -10% of the country’s GDP.
Mr Hinga said one of the Key drivers to hiking commodities is Freight charges which are the actual money you pay to ship goods that has been going up.
He said the cost of shipment has been going up of which a sole contributor to the hike in goods and commodities.
He said this has been happening and it’s rather unfortunate for people to suffer from such and as a Ministry he had been relentless in meeting with importers and investors of which factories and rehabilitation of closed Manufacturing producing Companies are to be reestablished soon.
He also mentioned that Sierra Leone has the cheapest fuel price in the whole world as compared to other countries despite buying from the same market.
Another Commodity he mentioned was Cement, he noted that the demand for Cement is on the increase of which the Freight charges had changed from $20 to $51as the metric ton of bag of cement from turkey and the freight increased from $51 to $70 including charges for transportation, GST and host of activities contribute to the hike in prices.