Last Sunday morning I went to church to attend a “tomb unveiling” ceremony for a woman that had passed away some 80 days ago in the neighborhood. After the clergy were through with their unusually lengthy sermons, everybody was invited to a breakfast thrown to commemorate the deceased. Under normal circumstances only those who have taken pains to attend the very early unveiling occasion performed in the graveyard would opt to attend the party. When we came back to participate in the food eating session, we were surprised to see quite a number of people who were not present at the unveiling ceremony lining up, a shameful act otherwise. None of us suspected these decently dressed people were uninvited intruders until one of the hosts identified them after rather harsh investigations.

The incident was pathetic if not embarrassing. These people were posing as invited guests trying to take advantage of the benefit of the doubt as such parties are essentially meant to be altruistic acts of free lunch although the self-appointed inspector host woman did not allow it to happen. Gossip circulated around the invited guests. Stories of similar nature circulated. We were told that neighbors have even started dropping lines at eating hours only to share whatever food is set on the table. A woman sitting next to us was complaining about her neighbor’s uncharacteristic behavior of repeatedly borrowing injera of late and not returning it. Life seems to be very painful these days.

The present price hike of goods and services in Addis Abeba and other major cities and towns in the regions is said to be caused, among other things, by the growth-induced increase in demand for goods and services resulting in inflated prices.

Economic growth is a sweet melody that everybody wants to listen to. It is also the most frequented issue politicians love to speak about. The simplest political issue which the bulk of the voting society raises to challenge its rulers is always the issue of the prevalence of economic growth expressed not so much in terms of growth figures and percentages but expressed in terms of dollars and cents. This could be either a discount in the price of goods and services or in an increase of income in absolute terms. It would be a very futile exercise to try to understand any concept of economic growth that cannot be translated into tangible materials that positively change the living conditions of the majority of the people.

People dream to lead a better life. They think of eating good food or buying goods and services, but discover that prices are going higher and higher by the day, despite the mass media reporting increases of production in almost every sector of the economy. The area of irrigated land shows tremendous increase. The use of inputs has tripled according to reports. Farm yields are said to have doubled. The grain dealers in our neighborhood, however, try to sell teff for 560 Br per quintal. They rarely have any customer visiting them these days, however.

The popular butchers are not happy with the market trend. They used to sell two or three bulls on Saturdays. Those weekends were times when civil servants and other veteran gourmets raised funds to devour raw meat in groups downing the delicacy with wine or draught beer.

These days though situations seem to have taken a U-turn. The traders are forced to wait for at least 3 days before they sell one bull and slaughter another one. The buying price of cattle has escalated beyond their reach thus hindering them from selling meat at reasonable prices. Civil servants for their part have worries other than slicing raw meat or wining on weekends. Bartenders who were once emptying several kegs of draft beer daily hardly manage to clear even one a day.

As far as the supply of grain in the market is concerned, the government tries to stabilize prices through purchasing grain from the producing farmers ahead of time to sell it back to the consumer when the need to do so arises.

This precautionary measure, however, seems to have exacerbated matters. The public purchase enables the farmer to make good for the loss he sustains when acquiring fertilizer or other inputs. There is no earthly reason for the farmer to go altruistic and sell his grain for a lesser price when he is certain to sell it at a higher price to the Grain Boards.

Many experts argue that as urban consumers buy grain on a staggered base, they cannot have access to the reduced price if it really exists. The other point discussed widely is the wisdom of exporting grain while urbanites are nearly starving because of the price hike.

Temamu is a middle-aged man working in the building construction industry. He is a skilled mason earning 40 birr per 8-hour day. He is presently unemployed because his employer has discontinued construction activities due to the lack of cement at affordable rate. The family has literally nothing to feed on. His wife borrowed some money to buy some odd things and tries to make ends meet. Two of their children are school dropouts engaged in the selling of lottery tickets. Life is becoming almost unbearable for the family.

The most vulnerable sector of the society are obviously pensioners receiving only nominal allowances on which most of them can hardly buy a full course of a decent meal in a nameless restaurant. I asked a former driver of the Ministry of Finance how he can manage to survive with the little allowance he receives every month. He gets a little over 67 birr or thereabouts. He told me that he used to buy a few kilos of beans, soak a few in water and consume a handful every morning except fasting days. He says he feels his body has sort of resigned from consuming much. That may be a natural compromise many other pensioners may envy.