In Guinea, a few weeks before Ramadan, in a country that is more than 85% Muslim, women challenged the head of state, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, about the high cost of living and suffering in the household basket, on March 8. The head of state immediately urged the economic actors in Guinea to ask them to act quickly.
as reported from Conakry, Mouctar Bah
The sky-high prices of basic necessities or consumer goods are a headache for Guinea households. Binta Cosa, who lives in the suburbs of Conakry, goes out on the market: “We women suffer from our living conditions, we are in the markets and sell everything that comes in handy, because women today are the guarantors of the balance in the home, but we meet everyone difficulties given the high cost of living, in this country everything is expensive, to eat enough you have to get up happy ”.
Souleymane, a trained economist who has become an importer of consumer products, explains the difficulties his profession faces: “The port of Conakry is today one of the most expensive ports in the sub-region because there are Bolloré who invoice as it pleases., The shipping companies do the same, you have the national the customs which have a very high scale in relation to the value to be paid for taking the goods out of the port and the handling of the stern is very slow at the customs level ”.
He formulated his request to the Guinean state: “We ask the state to open a channel for dialogue, we thought that with all the meetings we had with the relevant ministers of trade, industry and budget, that this information that they had received would be transmitted as such “Unfortunately, at the last meeting on Friday, the President did not seem to us to be someone who was aware of our problems.”
The Ministry of Industry and Trade, as requested by RFI, did not want to comment at this time.
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