Citizens are outraged that prices are increasing day by day and that the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are not doing anything to stop the attacks on household budgets. The union consumer basket for a four-member family in February is 2,902 BAM, and the average salary coverage is only 40 percent. Food prices rose the most, by as much as 22 percent.
Sellers at the city market in Banja Luka say that the purchasing power of citizens has dropped drastically. It is rare for them to buy a kilogram, usually only a few pieces.
Citizens say that they prefer to shop at the market, because the fruits and vegetables are of better quality, even though the prices have exceeded all limits. They are forced to reduce the grammage due to the price increase. They buy, they say, twice as much as before inflation.
During the process of rising prices, the price of eggs has drastically increased by more than 100 percent. Last year, an egg cost 20 pfennigs, and now it costs 40, 50 and 70 pfennigs, depending on the size.
Although the prices of fuel in BiH have decreased by almost one BAM compared to a few months earlier, the prices of basic foodstuffs have not. What’s worse, they keep increasing day by day.
“Here it is no longer just up to retailers and manufacturers and distributors, so this growth and trend, we do not see a way to stop. Now the price of electricity has risen and there is a new justification for why the prices are significantly higher, so the consumer pays that toll,” points out Murisa Maric from the Citizens’ Association “Don” from Prijedor.
According to statistical data, the prices of food and soft drinks increased by 22 percent, overhead costs and transportation by more than 15 percent. Our interlocutors conclude that the authorities in BiH are not undertaking any measures to fundamentally protect citizens from inflationary shocks and commercial hunting in the dark.
E.Dz.
