Riots, global trends and poverty

Wednesday, Feb. 20^th. This evening is remarkably quiet in Bobo Dioulasso. No one really ventures out. The day has been marked by violent looting and rampage in all the major streets of the city. Youth have left virtually no street light, no road sign and no side road stalls functional. As the night sets and radios announce a day off school and work tomorrow, I try to recap what I heard in the course of today.

People gathered this morning at city hall, to sign an official protest against price rises, and about government hypocrisy in pointing to the shop keepers for raising them. They were met with tear gas, spread into factions, and walked back to their neighborhoods, breaking and burning everything on their path. Shopkeepers breaking side road shops…

Karim, 25, turned violent in the streets today. He explains: “The government has raised taxes on commerce. When you had to pay 30,000 Fcfa annually for your business, today you have to pay 80,000 Fcfa. I import motorbikes to Bobo. I have to pay 130,000 cfa per bike (worth 250,000) at the border. After that, they accuse the shop keepers of raising their prices for no reason!”

Indeed. The price of cooking oil has jumped from 850 to 1050 Fcfa per liter in the past few days. Rice, sugar, gas and basic necessity products have followed suit. In the second poorest country in the world, gas is more expensive than in Canada, almost the same price as in France, with 40% tax on it. More than one person in three here makes less than a dollar a day. The end of 2007 has seen the rise of bread prices from 100 Fcfa for a baguette, to 125 until last week, and 130 today in Bobo. Overall, a 30% increase in prices in just a few months.

It doesn’t help that the agricultural season has been disastrous this year. “People are worried” says Aimé, 30, “the rains have started late, and stopped early last rainy season, not giving time for crops to mature. Now maïs prices are already sky high.” In fact, yields in the region have been five times less than that in good years in some areas. The 100kg bag of corn is worth between 10,000 and 12,500 cfa today, for 8,000 last year at the same period, almost 50% more expensive. Maïs is the main staple for Burkinabés and many people in the city don’t grow enough of it to sustain their family and therefore need to purchase it.

Yet on the other hand, only half of the streets in Bobo are paved, and one cannot help but notice that the government here needs funds, desperately. People here seem to have no trust in a government that is believed to be wasting the funds. People notice small details, not big projects. Lamine, 35 and father of two, shows his frustration: “To officially launch the construction of a small city hall in a small city 500km from Ouagadougou, the capital, the government sends a cortege of 20 SUVs full of officials instead of sending the local representative. People want cheaper goods, but we explode loads of fireworks for the 20^th anniversary of democracy instead”.

How does a government collect taxes in a country where a great majority grows their own food, runs informal businesses and does not trust it for the use of the money? How will the poor get basic services like access to roads, electricity and water, if the money is funneled into repairing the damage, trip stipends and blowing fireworks? How does a government face trends like global warming, leading to the shortening of the already tight agricultural season, and increasing oil prices, when people are already stretched?