By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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Rising prices of cooking oil, energy and other imported goods are putting pressure on low income earners and vulnerable households’ budgets who are already feeling the pinch from Covid-19 pandemic.

A survey in the market indicated that the cost of imported and local consumer goods went up significantly as traders adjusted their prices to cope with expenses attributed to increased shipping costs and bottlenecks in the supply chain induced by the pandemic.

It has emerged that rise in the international oil and gas market which sent cooking gas prices up over the past months quickly extended to other essential imported items namely cooking oil, steel products, wheat flour and garments.

The price of cooking oil jumped the highest after the factory price plummeted to Rwf37,500 per a 20-liter jerry can from Rwf22,000 to Rwf23,000.

“We are coming to almost Rwf38,000 soon. The only hope is if Covid-19 protocols are eased and people come back to business, the cost will come down,” said Martin Frank Nyabudara, head of Manebu, a local producer and exporter of vegetable oils and fats.

He said the Covid-19 led to reduced sunflower harvests in key import destinations while a few shipping lines are working to help deliver the little available volumes.

Mr Nyabudara said the cost of importing oil from Malaysia to the port of Mombasa, for instance, more than doubled to $1,380 per metric tonne from $640 in the pre-pandemic period.

Rwanda Today learnt that the cost of steel went up to $1,250 per tonne from $680 in 2019. Costs on both increase even further on account of delays and bottlenecks linked with the Covid-19 protocols imposed by individual countries like the recent crisis on the Kenya-Uganda borders.

“Already it will take four to five days without oil at my plant. So, there are few things moving at extra costs and this goes down to the consumer,” said Mr Nyabudara.

Industry captains say other imported products like sugar, cement and hygiene products registered an increment but were relatively lower as they are either available in the region or raw materials are not sourced from overseas.

Our surveys indicate cost for most of the items increased by between 10 to 15 per cent in weeks towards the end of the year when demand went up, and since then never went down.

The inflation report for December which was released by the National Institute of Statistics shows the annual average inflation rate increased by 1.9 percent but it is the imported goods index that increased the most at 7.7 percent, followed by energy at 5.5 percent.

The rise in costs have since driven buyers to relatively cheaper locally produced items which have since gone up.

“Costs started easing after early harvest from the September to December season started coming in, but demand and speculation is driving prices up. It’s mostly speculation because there is no basis to justify the shortage at the moment,” said Moses Ndayisenga, Supply chain manager with local maize processor Minimex.

Particularly, the reopening of schools this month saw a rise in cost of supplies in markets as schools moved to fill stocks.