Africa news

A man, around 40-years-old, walks away from his home to buy some tea, fried eggs and bread on a Sunday early night on January 21, 2024 in Waterloo.

He was told Le 8 for a fried egg while the bread costs Le 5. The price has jumped past triple times than it was five years ago.

The rise in prices on night dishes and on bread and tea is surely affecting the likes of Mohamed who goes to buy bread and  tea at a tea stall in a street in Waterloo, the outskirts of Freetown.

These days there have been complaining voices by young men over increasing prices on foodstuffs.

Night food sellers (those who sell tea and bread, hamburger and salad, fried cakes and bread, salad and beans, ‘archekeh’ or gari salad) now decide to add up on the cost of food as they say things are now expensive in the market.

Ask anyone who buys cooked rice on the street these days, he would tell you a plate of rice bowl now costs over Le 10.

And a spoonful of cookery rice is measured on a bowl plate, but which doesn’t even enough for a little boy or girl at age 6.

The high price on a plate of cooked rice has further seen an additional cost as government lately decides to impose a 5 per cent tax on imported rice.

This decision by government has caused a cupful of rice to be risen to Le 5 in the markets, leading to further grumblings among people.

Asked a young girl who sells cookery in Waterloo about why they decided to add up to the price on a plate of bowl.

She said since a bag of rice has risen to about Le 800, they needed to increase the price on a plate of bowl rice for customers.

As foodstuffs are on fast hike trend, life is on a sword’s edge for most poor Sierra Leoneans who now find it very stressful to buy a plate of a bowl of cooked rice on a daily basis.