Citizens in Raja County, Western Bahr el Ghazal State, have decried skyrocketing grain prices and said they can barely afford to feed their families.
According to the Raja residents who talked to Radio Tamazuj Wednesday, 3.7 kilograms of sorghum which was sold at 700 SSP last month now costs 1,200 SSP. 3.7 kilograms of maize went up from 500 to 700 SSP.
Hawa Idriss said the cost of living and feeding has become too high.
“Food prices, especially Sorghum, maize, and groundnuts have become expensive,” she said. “If you are ten or more family members with no money and you buy 3.7 kilograms of Sorghum, it will not be enough.”
Adam Ramadan Ahmed said many families cannot purchase food because they just returned from refugee camps in neighboring countries.
“The prices increased in just the last month. The citizens are suffering because they were refugees until recently and just returned from neighboring countries and they do not have any resources to support themselves and only try to cut firewood and poles which they sell to buy food.”
The county’s chamber of commerce chairperson, Kosho Dagigi Domoi, admitted the problem of rising commodity prices but blamed poor local food production and transport inaccessibility as the main reasons for the inflation.
“Dura (Sorghum) prices have skyrocketed and the increment started four days ago. We are now demanding Dura but sugar and other items are imported from Western Bahr el Ghazal State and Sudan,” he said.
The Raja County executive director, Santino Selah, said the local authorities are aware of the dura scarcity.
“We just got the information yesterday that there is no dura, leave alone the skyrocketing prices. It is not available. Yesterday I went to the market and I got someone selling very small quantities inside the store,” Selah said.