By Hassan I. Conteh
On a daily basis, fruits, especially pineapples, disappear on some major markets in Freetown owing to several factors. These days one hardly see abundant pineapples when one walks through many of the stalls at Guard Street, a popular market in Freetown.
Traders, who normally bring them, from the provinces, complain about transportation difficulties. Most of the traders who we spoke to said fares have hiked up exponentially. As a result, they could not withstand the huge cost in transporting their goods from the provinces to the city.
Added to their challenges is the bad state of feeder roads in hard-to-reach areas. Many of them who live around villages, like Ma Forgbo and Njamu Chiefdom, in the south of Sierra Leone, often get stranded on their way coming to Freetown.
They said most of the feeder roads are still in a very bad condition, as most villages do not have bridges that connect them. Pineapple traders who manage to sell in bigger cities face several challenges such as sales droughts. The sales in Freetown’s major markets, especially Guard Street, get so slow, they said.
The slowness of the sales could be attributed to the economic hardship in the country. The scarcity of the Leone currency, in banks, has added to an already devastating situation.
For instance, on November last year, the Bank Governor, Professor Keifala Kallon, announced that the Central Bank hadn’t enough reserve. His revelations, at the time, angered many Sierra Leoneans and some called for his immediate sacking. But despite several criticisms by the public, questioning his administrative competency, he was never showed the door by President Julius Maada Bio. He still stays in office while things get tough for the ordinary citizens.
On a cabinet reshuffle, other ministers were sacked save Professor Kallon. His statement that there wasn’t enough money left in the Central Bank prominently holds sway in the financial sector.
During December festivity, last year, most people who deposit money in the banks were prohibited from withdrawing huge quantities of cash. Cash outs were restricted to a sum of Le1,000,000 (one million Leones) in some banks in the city. The situation was so appalling that it rendered the Charismas absolutely boring for some people.
The boredom of wilderness was visibly seen almost everywhere. There were little celebrations among family members. The Diasporas were also disappointed as many streets marketed few fruits. Traders who should have brought the fruits from the villages were badly affected too. This is because the usual hubbub of the city was robbed off as less money circulated in the once busiest business places.
Pineapples, which are mostly loved by JCs (Diasporas), were virtually absent in local markets let alone to talk of supermarkets.
On early January, the Governor appeared on radio and promised a consignment of money to be brought into the country. He assured Sierra Leoneans that the first batch of supply was expected to have arrived end of January and early February. Both months have expired and not a single supply of paper note had been made.
The situation further resulted to less money in circulation in the markets, thereby forcing the few commodities to experience price hikes. As prices soar, the ordinary Sierra Leoneans suffer the economic pinch and social hitches. People’s purse strings have been suppressed harder in the face of grinding poverty.
The situation has long been exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed thousands of people around the world and has slumped down global economies.
The traders’ plights have hardened owing to series of lockdowns and curfews pronounced by the central government. At the height of series of lockdowns in the country, many fruits perished as they stranded on highways. The latest lockdown, slammed on Freetown, including many other lockdowns and curfews, caused several suffering to Sierra Leoneans.
On January 25 this year, National COVID-19 Emergency Response Centre (NaCOVERC) announced some measures with a view to curtailing the virus from quickly spreading. The measures saw the restriction of people’s movements from the provinces to Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown.
But it however caused severe hardship for people like Madam Mabinty, who solely depends on selling vegetables at Mile 38.
“When the road is open, we get more sales. In fact, like I am talking now, I would have finished a bag or two. But now, you can see. The place is so empty,” she emphasized.
Mabinty, like others who sells pineapples, said they often experience drastic fall of fruits in the market. The fruit trader is in her early 40s and has many mouths to feed. Providing lunch for the kids, she said, had proven very hard for her. She pointed at the goods that had spoiled owing to a two week lockdown.
The situation became more worrisome as sales got tougher for them. The situation at Mile 38 then is not different from the one in Freetown’s markets. The crowding at Guard Street, Foady Conteh said, had dwindled owing to soaring fares to and from the city.
“Customers don’t come as they used to in those days,” a store supervisor told Nightwatch.
Conteh recalled that the store used to be filled with a large number of people. During the hay days, he went on, Dove Cut became jam-packed with visitors notably traders from the provinces.
“Can you imagine these days; you hardly see traffic jams of people here. In 2006, when one brings goods, one just spends a day or two and finish selling. But now customers take weeks before they could return. It is very sad,” he remembered.
As fuel prices double, the fares pike dramatically, a condition which prohibits poor traders from bringing perishable goods into the city. One pineapple now cost around Le20,000 and the trimmed ones sold on plates stand at Le1,000.
On explaining the cost in getting them to the city, one trader remarked that each person pays almost Le70,000 from Njamu as transport fare. They would also have to pay for the load and for the store where their goods are kept.
The increasing cost of fuel has had a bearing on floated prices of commodities. The inflationary rate in the country also adds to the widening problem. And efforts to get prices of petroleum products down by the central government seem to be a nightmare. The situation gets worse on a daily basis and the poor Sierra Leoneans suffer most.