Cost of living soars across Africa, with leaders blaming Ukraine and Covid-19

In Teshie, a coastal town in the greater Accra region of Ghana, Marriem Mensah owns a small shop selling milk, bread and other basics. But her prices have risen significantly, in line with what she is being charged to buy provisions, and her customers have stopped coming.

“The inflation has affected my family to the extent that whenever we wake up in the morning we don’t know what to eat,” the 53-year-old mother said. “We don’t have money and to pay for my children’s school fees is difficult. Today the child might go to school, tomorrow maybe they won’t go. The prices are going higher and higher.”

Ghana’s economy has reached a crisis point, with inflation hitting almost 30 per cent. Its government says the situation is due to the war in Ukraine as well as the after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, though analysts suggest the economy was already in trouble before that.

“I don’t know what is behind it, I just know the president always says it’s because of Ukraine but I don’t know,” Mensah said. “I’m just waiting for the government to do something or have a policy that will help us.”

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The west African country of roughly 32 million is not the only one in the region where people have been protesting against soaring food and fuel costs.

This week, Nigerian bread makers went on a four-day strike over the price of wheat, with their association warning that the stoppage will be extended if the government fails to react.

In Sierra Leone, there was a full-day shutdown on July 4th as transport workers protested over fuel prices.

Burkina Faso saw a bakers’ strike in May after authorities attempted to shutter shops that raised their prices by about 30 per cent, in line with the increased cost of wheat.

Across the continent, the Kenyan government has just cut the price of wheat in half, with a stimulus package announced on Wednesday reducing the price of 2kg of maize flour from 210 Kenyan shillings (€1.74) to 100 shillings. A litre of petrol has dropped to 140 Kenyan shillings from 193, and petrol to 159 shillings from 210. But Kenyans worry that the subsidies might be a political move and will be removed after the upcoming election, scheduled for August 9th.

On Wednesday night, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni addressed his east African nation in a televised speech, in which he defended his decision not to give subsidies or reduce taxes, saying that would give an “artificial comfort” and the money should be used to build new roads and work on “new projects” instead.

The cost of fuel rose 70 per cent in Uganda between May 2021 and May 2022. Many of the country’s roughly 46 million citizens were already struggling as a result of one of the world’s strictest pandemic lockdowns, which involved the implementation of a curfew and schools being shut for nearly two years.

“When they tell you the cost of living is higher in the US and UK than in Uganda, kindly remind them that a litre of petrol is more than the daily minimum wage,” tweeted one Ugandan.

Dozens of people were arrested there this month over cost-of-living protests. In May, veteran opposition politician Kizza Besigye was detained, after mobilising citizens to demonstrate against the rising commodity prices. The following month, a week after his release, he was arrested again.

Museveni has been accused of ignoring the suffering of impoverished Ugandans, telling them in May to eat cassava if bread is too expensive. “If there is no bread eat muwogo [cassava]. Ugandans really confuse themselves. If you’re complaining that there’s no bread or wheat, please eat muwogo. I don’t eat bread myself,” he was quoted saying by local media.

Two weeks ago, a report by the United Nations Development Programme said soaring food and energy prices could push up to 71 million people into poverty, with Sub-Saharan Africa identified as one of the “hotspots”.

In a blog post this month, two World Bank officials said the situation was being made worse by a growing number of countries banning or restricting exports of wheat and other commodities. As of early June, at least 34 countries had imposed restrictions on exports on food and fertilisers, they said.

In April, The Irish Times visited Somalia and reported on how the Ukraine war had contributed to rising food costs, even as the country faced a devastating drought and potential famine.

But in Ghana, as in many other African countries, citizens are loath to let their leaders blame everything on the Ukraine war and Covid-19, without taking any responsibility themselves.

“I don’t think it’s related to Russia and Ukraine,” said Monica Deku (58), a cook, who complained that the cost of fuel was now so high that she spent most of her salary on commuting to her job, with barely anything left over. “It is because of our leaders. Not because of Covid-19. It is the failure of our leaders.”