Government reacts to outcry over cost of living

Weeks after Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure granted civil servants a 30 percent salary increase and extended their retirement age by two to three years, new measures to "tackle social burdens" have been announced. The measures published on Monday are intended to calm down a public outcry over unprecedented price hikes for foodstuffs, water and electricity since March. A press statement from the office of Prime Minister Ahmen Mohamed Ag Hamani said the government had decided to suspend Value Added Tax (VAT) on salt and rice from September to December. This would permit Malians to buy a kilo of salt at 99 CFAF (Communaute Financiere Africaine francs), about US 15 cents, instead of the current CFAF 121 (US 18 cents). Some 40,000 mt of rice would also be imported before the local rice harvest later in the year and made available to the public at CFAF 210,000 ($308) instead of the current CFAF 230,000 per mt ($338), the statement said. A reference value of CFAF 200.000 per mt ($295) was fixed for flour, "to protect national production" and preempt a rise in the price of bread. Other measures included a 2.85 percent reduction in the cost of water and electricity - equivalent to a reduction by half of the new tariffs that came into place since January, according to the statement. The prices of other essential commodities including sugar, meat, milk, medicines was also being reviewed, and might be subject to similar controls, it added. Mali is ranked 164 out of 173 countries in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2002. Some 72.8 percent of the population live on the equivalent of US $1 or less a day. The minimum authorised monthly wage for public servants is CFAF 20,965 ($30) but, in reality, many workers don't even get this amount, according to sources in the West African country. After his election in April, President Toure announced that he wanted to tackle all social burdens experienced by the people.