By Africa24 team

The unstoppable increase in all sorts of stationery is currently disrupting learning institutions and private and public offices in Sierra Leone.

This phenomenon is hugely affecting Sierra Leoneans of various categories who need papers for learning purposes or for official uses.

Currently, a packet of A4 paper which contains 500 sheets is costing buyers Le 100,000 in shops at Freetown’s Garrison Street. 3-leaf of papers are sold Le 100,000 at some shops.

This shock in price per packet results to an increase in the cost of printing out a single leaflet.

Those who are in the business of printing have added prices on black and white print outs and on coloured print outs of various sizes of papers.

And, in the case, where power supply is unavailable, printing shops or cafes workers would have to charge customers to pay double.

The price is higher than the cost that is required for to be paid when there is power supply in an area.

In the event a generator power supply is used to print documents, school notes, official correspondences, or the likes, customers are demanded to pay Le 4,000 per an A4 page.  The price for a page photocopy is now Le 1,000 than it was Le 500 two years ago.

Printing of a white and black page under electricity supply, is Le 3,000 now.

In areas outskirts of the capital, prices are way up than in the main commercial parts of Freetown.

People are paying Le 5,000 for a coloured printing of a single page in Freetown, at Back Street and other places in Freetown as the price indicates on Wednesday November 15, 2023.

This is especially so when electricity is absent.  The prices are sure to double when a power generator is used to do some printing.

“The price on papers has gone up; we are buying them at a higher cost.  The printing ink is also very expensive now,” says a café owner in waterloo, a densely populated town which is about 21 miles away from the capital.

When asked of the various prices of Printing Inks and materials along Garrison Street in Freetown, we were shocked about the stark revelations by a stationery seller.

HP 17A Black Toner Cartridge each is sold between Le 350,000 and 400,000; Epson Liquid ink set which used to be sold Le 25,000 are now costing between Le 80,000 and Le 120,000.

Also rim papers of 100 sheets used for documentation, drawing, writing, for newspapers for many other activities, used to be cheaper but are now sold Le 350,000 while vanguard papers (50 sheets) which were costing Le 50,000 years back are now running at a cost of Le 90,000. These prices listed above are based on the price tags in the market as of Wednesday November 15, 2023.

The increasing prices on all kinds of stationery are affecting school going children and university students in Sierra Leone now.

As inflation in the country keeps jumping, the ripple effect is seen on basic goods and materials sold in the country.

University students who often used to print out voluminous books or to photocopy some huge quantities of papers could no longer do so now under the current situation.

Lecturers at university level have similarly been affected by their research work and studies as they prepare teaching notes ahead of classes with students.

These lecturers sometimes would have to run the cost of printing college lesson notes for students.

But, now under the high cost on paper-copy, they risk the cost of running up just fewer pages selected from academic books and are paying huge amounts of money for those portions of pages than before when they used to pay up a minimal rate for the same number of papers being photocopied.

Students at university and those in secondary school or high schools are being seriously affected in their studies and assignments.

Talking to students at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, about the rising cost on paper printing and photocopying, they replied in a distasteful tone.

“We spend a lot of money these days on printing notes from our emails and on doing photocopies of assignments, we want an adjustment on the cost of printing in the country next year 2024 and we hope the Trade ministry is listening,” they asked.

As the price on printing and photocopying keeps increasing, prices on exercises books or notes books have also become too exorbitant.

There had been sharp increases made in the prices of books sold in markets on the eve of schools- reopening in the country.

While an 80-page book was sold Le 5,000, a ledger book was sold at Le 30,000 as of September, 2023.

On the whole, on parents’ education expenses, it is no doubt that the shocking increases in prices on books, pens, duffel bags, school uniforms, at high school and kindergarten, are said to be gradually disrupting the educational system in Sierra Leone.

Most parents in the month of September were unable to buy the required number of exercise books, text books, and duffel bags for their children.

And schools, colleges, universities, private and public offices are still meeting up these challenges daily.

Colleges will find it pretty more challenging during examination periods when they expect to procure more quantities of papers for students’ tests and exams.