Home ›› 17 Jan 2023 ›› World Biz
Jariatu Kargbo hauls a wooden spoon longer than her arm through a vat of rice as customers patiently wait their turn to buy lunch on the side of a busy road.
The 38-year-old widow runs a stall called “cookery” -- the cheapest option for many Sierra Leoneans to grab what is often their only meal of the day.
Cookeries in this impoverished West African state are a crucial part of the economy as well as a social safety net.
But the cherished institution is under pressure from a brutal exernal force: inflation.
“Prices for major food items -- rice, cooking oil, onion, sugar and flour -- have quadrupled,” Kargbo told AFP, as the smell of boiled beans wafted over from behind her.
Cookeries in Freetown, the capital, sell rice and stew at a fraction of what they would cost in a restaurant.
“These predominantly women are kind of the backbone of the city in terms of keeping it fed, because a lot of people... don’t have the facilities to cook at home”, said Jamie Hitchen, a researcher.
But the densely-populated metropolis does not have any urban agriculture, so food is trucked in from the countryside or imported from abroad.
Ever since the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine sent global inflation soaring, that has become painfully expensive.
As of November, the latest month on record, inflation had risen 35 percent year-over-year in Sierra Leone.
“We were buying a cup of rice for 1,500 leones ($0.08) in 2021 –- now its 3,500 leones,” said Kargbo, who opened her business to support her six children after her husband died of Ebola in 2014.
Sierra Leone in July slashed three zeros off its currency hoping to restore confidence in the inflation-hit leone. Many, including Kargbo, still quote prices in the former denomination.
Riots
In August, riots broke out over the rising cost of living in the Shell Old Road Junction neighbourhood where Kargbo lives and works.
Twenty-seven civilians and six police officers were killed.
Kargbo’s customers consist mainly of motorcycle taxi drivers known as “okada” men, street hawkers and, occasionally, office workers.
Fuel prices
At a large cookery in the more affluent Hill Cot Road area, Fatmata Bangura, 48, sits on a low wooden bench and cuts up “cow kanda” -- cow skin -- while her daughter, Isata Dumbuya, and four employees stir onions, plantain, cabbage and beans in large metal pots over wood and coal fires.
They have been awake since 3:30 am, when Dumbuya, 32, sets out each day for the market.
Their business is stable, but their bottom line has nonetheless taken a hit.
