The cost of living in Tanzania has undoubtedly escalated beyond the reach of most people due to rising food inflation and surging fuel prices. Last week, the World Bank warned that rising food prices, driven partly by rising fuel costs, are pushing millions of people into extreme poverty.
World food prices are 36 percent above levels of a year ago, driven by problems in the Middle East and North Africa, and remain volatile, the bank said.
With Tanzanian consumers facing the highest pump prices which in the past twelve months have surged by between 33 and 55 percent, their counterparts in Uganda and Kenya are also nursing the wounds of the skyrocketing oil prices.
In Tanzania, fuel prices have gone up by an average of 33 percent, reaching about Sh1970 per litre in Dar es Salaam and Sh2,200 per litre of petrol in upcountry outlets.
According to a survey conducted by comparing how fuel prices traded in March, 2010 and where it stood by March 9, this week, kerosene, which is consumed by majority of Tanzanians, has increased by 59 percent in both Dar es Salaam and upcountry.
While in March last year, petrol prices in Dar es Salaam and upcountry traded at between Sh1,462 and Sh1,669 per litre, by March, this year, prices were at Sh1,970 and Sh2,170, our survey has established.
In March, last year, Kerosene was trading at Sh963 per litre but by mid this week, prices surged to Sh1537 per litre. Alarmed by the skyrocketing food and fuel prices, the Kenyan Finance Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, reduced the excise duty on imported fuel in order to cushion millions of Kenyans from the impact of escalating pump prices in the country. This Friday, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, promised to take further actions in order to reduce food prices in the East African country, in a bid to reduce the burden to his people.
But as Kenya took actions to curb the situation, in Tanzania, the Finance Minister Mustafa Mkullo, is underplaying the situation, as aptly captured by a daily English tabloid which quoted him as saying on Thursday this week:
“Our situation is not alarming compared to others. The inflation in Uganda has reached more than 11 percent, and we are not there yet…they (others) are in critical condition,” the Finance Minister was quoted
We, at The Guardian on Sunday, are highly appalled by the minister’s comments, because they paint a relatively rosy picture that grossly distorts the reality on the ground, and apparently point to ‘editing and sexing’ statistics to please the so-called masters.
Kerosene, the main source of energy to nearly 80 percent of Tanzanians, has surged by 55 percent per litre by March, this year, compared to last year. And skyrocketing of fuel prices contribute significantly to rising food prices.
That the minister, a holder of such a senior and sensitive portfolio, should brush aside that reality suggests that there’s something wrong with the government, an institution that is enjoined to cushion Tanzanians from the pinch.
If we were to ask Mkullo how much money the government’s economic policies have added in the pockets of Tanzania during the past six months, we are certain he won’t give a credible answer.
Alarmingly, early this year, the minister remarked that ‘Everybody should carry one’s own burden” when he was asked what measures the government was planning to take to curb the escalating fuel prices.
In short, Mkullo is telling Tanzanians that their government won’t take any precautionary measures to ease the crisis, oblivious of moves by the political opposition to mobilise the people to demonstrate against it.
We insist that it behooves him, plus colleagues tasked with managing the economy to take appropriate measures before it worsens to unmanageable proportions.
