in africa ghana is one of the most
expensive countries to live in prices of
goods and services have increased
sharply since the beginning of the
pandemic and some say the situation is
becoming unbearable rising fuel and food
prices are affecting all parts of
society including one man's local rice
catering business our west africa
correspondent nominko went to meet him
mark imprim owns a catering business
i met up with him at the market shopping
for ingredients for one of his most
popular dishes jollof rice so how have
the increase in prices affected you
used to be 20 cities
but we are here today markets and the
low man is telling me
the price is going
and you bought it for 20 cities last
week seven days ago exactly
and now it's double the price
and
has she explained why
she wasn't saying she went to the
market to buy and then the box
yes formally it was around 1200 but
she's telling me today it was 2 500.
that means it's difficult for you to put
together a budget exactly
it's markets like this one where
consumers used to come to buy basic food
items because they were much cheaper but
now things have changed because food
prices have more than doubled everywhere
in just the last few weeks are you
please i would need oil
25 liters how much
what have you found yourself having to
stop buying because of the prices i used
to buy oil
in bulk
but now
i'm even struggling to buy one what
about the spices because i see you've
got other things here um
12 13 cities 18 cities now
you understand everything the last time
i got a jar
is one of the spices i eat in preparing
my jello must be very difficult
rice which is fast becoming a staple is
mainly imported from asia
but local wholesalers have been forced
to cancel orders in recent months due to
the depreciation of the local currency
against the u.s dollar
in the first quarter of this year the cd
devalued by 19
compared to just under 10 percent in
2018.
in early april ghana's inflation shot up
to its highest levels since 2019
and one of the driving forces of that
has been the cost of buying fuel and
that in turn has made transport even
more expensive
the amount that we use to buy the food
is too much for us
so we are coming to you know the
government to reduce the fuel for us so
that it can help us
not only is he having to endure steep
food prices but the rising cost of
essentials has also been seen in the
price of drinking water which has
increased twice in four months
something water producers said was
unavoidable
mark is one of many ghanaians who worry
about their business and livelihood if
prices keep going up and up