Price hikes – Is ‘kalabule’ creeping back?
Going to the market or supermarket is getting dangerously frightening these days. The nightmarish monster is none other than the hikes in the price of items from foods to hardware. Prices increases have become an everyday occurrence.
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I remember those days ( in the late 1970s) vividly. Those were turbulent times when the prices of goods and services were determined by very few people who were exploiting the situation then and creating scarcity.
Those days, prices never found their level and so those who had the stocks ended up hoarding and releasing them in bits at their own determined higher prices. Those were indeed hard days for Ghanaians. The practice was christened “Kalabule”. It came to be part of our parlance. Comparing those days to now, three decades later, the only difference is that while there was scarcity those days, now there is relative abundance at prohibitive prices.
Relative because even though there are no shortages now a dealer in vehicle spare parts said on television last Sunday that due to the fall of the cedi, dealers were not able to afford the dollars to import new parts and her fear was that once their old stock ran out, there would be shortages of some vehicle parts on the market.
Over the last couple of months, I have been following prices of items and comparing their trend weekly, sometimes fortnightly. These have not been prices of vehicles or gated community homes. My focus has neither been on ready-made fashionable wears or handbags, neither have I been following the prices of a plate of lunch or dinner at five or four-star hotels and restaurants.
I have tried to stay away from comparing prices of sirloin of beef, lamb or pork chops or even cassava fish. I have focused on foodstuffs that the majority of people are buying to cook for their families on a daily basis.
I have been to the Kaneshie Market and have been to the Mallam Market where I normally get my fruits. Just last Saturday, I stopped at the Adabraka Market to get some smoked fish. Incredible, was my verdict as I moved from market to market surveying prices.
Over the period of monitoring, a cup of beans which was selling at GH¢1.20 is now selling at GH¢2.00, up by about 80 per cent in one month. Similarly, a cup of white sugar has moved from GH1.20 to GH¢2.00. An “olonka” of corn which used to sell at GH¢2.50 is currently selling at GH¢3.00 while the same measure of gari has gone up from GH¢4 to GH¢5. A bag of charcoal which sold at between GH¢20 and GH¢22 has now inched up to GH¢30.
The painful truth is that, these are all everyday family purchases. They are not luxury foods but daily staples. Any wonder that families have stopped cooking meals and queues at wayside food joints are getting longer?
One may ask, are the hikes the result of the dire economic situation facing us now or are we back to the days when sellers hoarded and released their goods at higher prices, as and when, hiding behind the difficult economic situation? What made me to be in two minds is a recent encounter I had with a dealer in security steel doors, PVC windows and balustrades.
The dealers had advertised “quality” security doors in the Daily Graphic. They had exactly what I had been looking for, for some time. I went to the showroom and I was told the door I wanted was selling at GH¢900. I was advised to get a carpenter to measure the existing door I needed to change to ensure I bought the right one.
I went back two weeks later with my measurement and the price of the same door was GH¢1, 200. This was an incredible increase of GH¢300. In a state of disbelief, the owner tried to explain his price increase, blaming it on the fall of the value of the cedi.
Yes, the cedi is performing abysmally but boy; some of the price changes are unimaginable. The way one sees it, we have hit an era where procrastinating, when it comes to buying, has now become very expensive.
So, prices of items are changing, going upwards every day. But for how long can we survive the hardships? The “kalabule” culture of the 1970s should not be seen to be repeating itself.