Anne Njuguna runs a small bakery in Loresho, a neighborhood in Nairobi [au Kenya] where the middle classes live. In the three years since she opened her business, she has never seen such a rise in prices.
The cost of virtually every ingredient skyrocketed and it became impossible to predict demand and profit margins, she says. It raised prices in December and then in May.
In the neighborhood of Cosmo City in Johannesburg [en Afrique du Sud], Anziswa Ndlovu has been hit hard by the pandemic. She lost her job in 2020 when she was already struggling to pay for school for her three children, and feeding them has become a daily struggle. “I had to reduce the number of meals. We eat only in the morning and in the evening.” The price of the average household basket has increased by 10% compared to the start of 2021.
In Accra, Ghana, a plantain trader explains:
“We make very little profit [à cause de] the increase in fuel, which leads to an increase in the cost of transport.”
When eating becomes a luxury
These economic constraints translate almost immediately into higher prices. Across the continent, prices of everyday goods are skyrocketing and ordinary foods are becoming luxury items.
Which only compounds another problem, since, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) data, Africans already spend more on food than most other parts of the world, with nearly half of their budget spent to food.
In Kenya, the soaring prices in one year is enough to make you dizzy. Since April 2021, a liter of cooking oil has increased by 42% and a two-kilogram bag of wheat by 25%, according to the country’s national statistics office. A net food importer, Kenya bought about 34% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the war.
In South Africa, according to the published index [fin avril] by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, the price of cooking oil increased by 42% between April 2021 and April 2022. For cervelat, beef liver, apples, squash, frozen chicken, margarine , spinach, eggs, potatoes and tea, the increase is up to 31%.
In addition to reducing the number of her children’s meals, Ndlovu has redesigned the menus. The sandwiches consist of two slices of bread.
“Margarine, eggs and cervelas have increased a lot. So we eat bread, with nothing.”
In Nairobi, Njuguna finds her middle-class clientele making the same kind of decisions. Some renounce the luxury of its pastries. It therefore offers batches, made up of products that are subject to significant price fluctuations, such as cakes, and others less affected, cookies for example.
Social instability in perspective
With this galloping inflation, people are finding it difficult to adjust their consumption and commentators fear that the situation will give rise to overflows.
“Hunger is a very poor political adviser. Politics is economics and economics is daily bread, explains Victor Kgomoeswana, a South African specialist in economic affairs and columnist.
“Whenever a country, a neighborhood or a family risks not having enough to eat, there is a risk of social and political instability.”
AIn Kenya, where a 2021 Gallup poll showed that 7 out of 10 people had given up buying food for lack of money in the previous year, discontent began to mount on social media in February .
While an election [présidentielle] will take place in August, hashtags like #BaissezLesPrix and #Njaa-R Révolution [un mouvement qui proteste contre la hausse des prix] flourished on Twitter or on signs, with #BoycottdesÉlections, #RienAMangerRienAVoter
In July [2021], South Africa has been rocked by a series of riots, the most violent since the end of apartheid. Triggered by the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma, they also expressed the despair of South Africans.
For Ndlovu, the only way to be heard will be to take to the streets again.
“We can’t take it anymore and the only way to make our leaders understand our suffering is to organize demonstrations against these crazy prices.”
The nightmare of stagflation
Kenyan economist Ken Gichinga warns African governments: people want them to “put money in companies and in the pockets [des citoyens]” instead of “focus their efforts on financing infrastructure”.
The problem cannot be solved simply. Many of the factors that have driven up the cost of living predate the current problems and extend beyond the geographical borders of these countries.
Even before the pandemic, the Kenyan economy was experiencing very sluggish growth. The country is crumbling under a debt of more than 8 trillion shillings [64 milliards d’euros], and Kenyans are paying the price with heavily taxed products. Things got worse with the implementation of the government’s short-term measures to curb inflation. In April, it reached 6.47%, its highest level in seven months.
The population, aware of the complex nature of the problem, does not expect much from the State.
Pocketing a crumpled 100 shilling note [7,5 euros] after serving his last customer of the day, Francis Mwangi, a grocer at the Valley Arcade market in Nairobi, explains that the Kenyan economy has weakened because the opposition, too weak, has not played its role of counter -power. According to him, the government that emerges from the elections, whoever it is, will not have the means to save the situation.
“Where would they find the money to reduce the cost of goods? Are they going to borrow more money and make it worse?”