By Mustapha Jarju
The Gambia is one of the countries where green tea locally called ‘attaya’ is widely drink by many people who considered it as a drink that make chatting lively. But with its relevance in the society, there has been a sharp rise on the pricing of a small box of 25grs of the tea which brings complaints from the consumers.
The sales price of a box of 25grs of the tea has been increased from D10 to D12 while cup of sugar for the preparation too has increased from D10 to D12.
Momodou J Bah, green tea consumer said he started experiencing price hike since early November 2021 when prices started skyrocketing.
“Ataya was D8 and it came up to D10 and they have added to the price again as the retail price D12 dalasi. I don’t know what the cause is, all prices are going up and the government should help in trying to control the price of commodities,” he complained bitterly.
Bah like others that are addicted to attaya confirmed that 90% of Gambian population drinks Attaya and despite the fact that they drink tea in the morning they will still drink attaya and drinking it does not have a specific time especially from midday upward for office workers while the skilled workers drink right from after breakfast onward.
“So the changes in price will affect consumers a lot but the government need to help us,” he begged.
Ebrima Ndow commented that “the skyrocket price started in the past year, currently the price has increased to D12 and before I used to buy cup of sugar for D7 but it is currently from D10 to D12 in my area, the increase is not helping situations at all.”
Anyway, “if the increase of the Attaya continues, I will still buy it because no matter how expensive cigarette is people are still smoking it and it is more dangerous than Attaya, but this is seriously affecting us”.
Before, he said, “Green tea was D9 later increased to D10 but recently they are selling it for D12 which is caused by the high price from the wholesale. We were buying sugar for D1, 500 per bag and now increased to D2,000 and all this are seriously affecting our business because sometime if we buy one cartoon of Attaya you can sell it all in just a day but now even half cartoon you cannot sell it in a day because the price is too much,” Fatou Faye, a seller stated.
