Kenya, Uganda protest as maize prices skyrocket
By Jason Straziuso and Tom Odula, Associated Press
20 April 2011
NAIROBI, Kenya—Stephen Omandi scratched out the number “55” on the sign advertising buckets of maize and wrote in the new price: 60 Kenya shillings. The price hike amounted to only $0.06. But for the residents of Nairobi’s largest slum, where most people live on $1 a day, that 10 percent increase is enough to make the essential food stuff unaffordable. “We haven’t gotten many customers because they complain, ‘Why have you increased the price?'” said Omandi. “Five shillings. It’s a lot of money, because many people could not afford it at 55, and now it’s 60.” Food prices are rising across the globe, driven in part by the higher transport costs that accompany rising oil prices. The World Bank said last week that food prices are 36 percent higher today than a year ago, and are pushing people “deeper into poverty.” But no region has been hit harder by rising food costs than Africa over the last three months. Wheat costs 87 percent more in Sudan. Rice is up 30 percent in Chad. Maize has risen at least 25 percent in Uganda, Somalia, Mozambique and Kenya. Omandi used to sell 40 small buckets of maize a day, but on one recent day — the first of his most recent price hike — he sold only two. Omandi was forced to increase his price because the government had just raised the price ceiling it sets for gasoline. The whole cycle made customers grumble. “They said, ‘Have you increased it again?’ It used to be 35 Kenya shillings late last year. Now it has increased almost 100 percent,” Omandi said. …
