In Senegal, the government announced on June 13, 2024 measures to lower the prices of everyday consumer products including rice, oil and bread, in response to the high cost of living in the country. Momar Ndao, president of the Consumers Association, calls for regular monitoring of compliance with these reductions. “ Often, the State made announcements that just had political overtones to say “well, we have dropped”, but then there was no follow-up behind it. », he recalls.
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It was a long-awaited measure Senegal : the drop in prices of several essential products such as rice, bread and oil will be effective from June 24, 2024.
This is not the first time that this type of measure has been implemented in the country. In November 2022, under the presidency of Macky Sall, a price drop was announced, but little followed in practice after only a few days of controls.
“ If everyone gets involved, there is no problem, the prices will be respected »
For Momar Ndao, president of the Consumers’ Association (Ascosen), with increased staff numbers this new reduction is more likely to be a success. “ To avoid finding ourselves in the same situation as before, what is needed is for control to be permanent, so that these are not hit operations, that there be a more broad involvement of all sworn forces, and then the State continues in its logiche emphasizes on the microphone of our correspondent Juliette Dubois. Because what happened is that, often, the State made announcements that just had political overtones to say “OK, we went down“, but then there was no follow-up behind “.
He pursues : ” Compared to the latest declines, the dedicated staff at the Ministry of Commerce level is less than 300 people. To make this control more efficient, we proposed the use of the consumer volunteers that we had suggested, and the State had recruited 1,000 people who should help the controllers on the ground. »
Momar Ndao concludes: “ We also requested the extension of control to other defense and security forces: police, gendarmerie, national health service, etc. It’s totally doable because, let’s say, the staff is already there. If everyone gets involved, there is no problem, the prices will be respected. »
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The new president of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, inaugurated at the beginning of April after his victory in the first round at the end of March, had promised during the campaign to fight against the high cost of living in the country, which imports most of its consumption.