Government sells cheap rice to bring down soaring food prices

The government of Guinea has promised to sell 20,000 tonnes of rice direct to the public at controlled prices in an attempt to bring down soaring food prices. The measure was announced on state radio by a senior aide of President Lansana Conte on Monday. "Rice will now be sold to the population right at their doorsteps to ease the current burden placed upon them by greedy business people," he said. Government officials said the rice would be sold at US $12 per 50 kg bag from special depots under the watchful eye of policemen and local government officials. They are supposed to prevent traders from buying the cheap rice in bulk and reselling it for more. Shortly before the 21 December presidential election which was boycotted by the main opposition parties, rice all but disappeared from the market. Where Guinea's staple food was available, it sold for $20 a bag. Conte, who has ruled Guinea with an iron hand for the past 20 years, has frequently blamed speculators in the business community for pushing up food prices. But economists and opposition leaders point instead to falling income from bauxite exports, saying this has starved the government of foreign exchange to pay for vital imports. Senior Finance Ministry officials recently admitted that the central bank no longer had sufficient hard currency available to finance most commercial imports and traders would henceforth have to find the necessary dollars and euros by some other means. The announcement put further upward pressure on the price of imported goods. Before independence from France in 1958 Guinea exported rice. But decades of misrule and neglect of the economy mean that the country's eight million people now depend heavily on food imports. It is not only rice prices that have gone up in recent weeks as inflation has taken hold. The price of locally produced staple foods such as potatoes, tomatoes and peppers has also soared.