{"id":61,"date":"2011-04-25T11:37:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T11:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/food-prices-affected-by-other-forces-not-fuel\/"},"modified":"2011-04-25T11:35:56","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T11:35:56","slug":"food-prices-affected-by-other-forces-not-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/food-prices-affected-by-other-forces-not-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Food prices affected by other forces, not fuel increase-Traders"},"content":{"rendered":"

As fuel prices continue to affect the East African region leading to political unrest in some of the countries, Rwanda remains unperturbed as Government delinks<\/span> the cost of fuel to that of food items.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a recent interview, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Monique Nsanzabaganwa<\/span> warns that oil products would always directly or indirectly affect other commodity prices but added that such a stretch should not exceed 0.4 percent to one percent increment arising out of an equal increase on fuel prices. The Minister however says that food prices are expected to remain stable.<\/p>\n

“It will depend on the behaviour<\/span> of the market but food prices shouldn\u2019t change, even last time when fuel process increased, they remained stable,” she says.<\/p>\n

On the lack of mechanisms to protect consumers, the minister though admits that there is no law to protect consumers\u2019 interests against overpricing as local consumer watchdog Consumer Rights Association of Rwanda appeals to the government to give it more support to deliver on its mandate.<\/p>\n

According to the Acting Managing Director of Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA<\/span>), Regis Gatarayiha<\/span>, there have been ongoing discussions and negotiations with the business people not to rapidly increase prices of their products as they wait for the situation to calm down.<\/p>\n

Igihe<\/span> visited various markets in Kigali including Kimironko<\/span>, Nyabugogo<\/span>, and Gikondo<\/span> market among others to ascertain how the mounting fuel prices may have affected the cost of food.<\/p>\n

According to the survey, both traders and consumers indicate that there are various other factors like food deficiency that may have impacted on the increase of food prices. <\/p>\n

 \u201cIn recent days, the price of beans had increased to RWF<\/span> 700 per kg but has since fallen back to RWF<\/span> 600 per kg,\u201d says Rosaria<\/span> Mukarurinda<\/span>, a trader in Kimironko<\/span> market. She notes that inconsistent rainfall has led to a food shortage, that has in turn helped food prices to soar to levels high, a situation she says cannot be blamed on fuel.<\/p>\n

For Yeluminee<\/span> Mukasindambiwe<\/span>, who vends rice, groundnuts, sugar, millet flour, cooking oil among others, though there is a hike in fuel price, the major problem is a shortage of produce from farmers, who claim little harvest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncrease in fuel prices is adding salt to an injury,\u201d Mukasindambiwe<\/span> says, adding that though food prices have increased, the situation cannot be compared to the neighbouring<\/span> countries like Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.<\/p>\n

According to the farmers that we interviewed, the price increase of food prices rose by a small margin among almost all food products. For instance, the price of a kilo of matooke<\/span> rose from RWF150<\/span> to 170 per kg.<\/p>\n

Due to the fluctuation of food prices, many of the traders claim that they undergo a lot of challenges as. \u201cWe make very little profits but when we deduct taxes, rent and so forth, coupled with the soaring of price in food items, we get almost no profits but still we have to persist until the prices have stabilised<\/span>,\u201d says Marie Louise Kagoyire<\/span>, a matooke<\/span> and Irish potatoes trader at Gikondo<\/span> market.<\/p>\n

A Kigali resident similarly echoes the concerns of the traders saying that they are often forced to reduce on the quantity of the food items due to price the increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go to the market hoping to buy, for instance, 50 kgs<\/span> of posho<\/span> and find that the prices have been hiked, we reduce on the quantity and purchase little according to the little money we have in our pockets and compared to the income one has,\u201d Vincent Dusabimana<\/span>, a resident of Jari<\/span> Sector, Gasabo<\/span> District, who had come to Nyabugogo<\/span> food market explains.<\/p>\n

For Pierre Bizimana<\/span>, the increase in food prices is dictated by a decrease in production. He says that he used to purchase 50kgs<\/span> of sweet potatoes per month but has since reduced this to 30kgs<\/span> due to this predicament..<\/p>\n

On her part, Jeanne Mukakamanzi<\/span>, who used to purchase 25 kgs<\/span> of rice for her family says, \u201cI just quit from buying rice because of the price increase which keeps worsning<\/span>. I will be buying posho<\/span> until the prices stabilise<\/span> ,\u201d Mukakamanzi<\/span> says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As fuel prices continue to affect the East African region leading to political unrest in some of the countries, Rwanda remains unperturbed as Government delinks the cost of fuel to that of food items. In a recent interview, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Monique Nsanzabaganwa warns that oil products would always directly or indirectly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[278],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-joram-muhoozi"],"bylines":[{"id":278,"name":"Joram Muhoozi","slug":"joram-muhoozi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":278,"name":"Joram Muhoozi","slug":"joram-muhoozi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}