Thousands on streets to protest price hikes on staple goods

Thousands of people took to the streets of Niger's capital on Tuesday in protest at price hikes for staple goods like flour and milk following the introduction of a new government tax. In its January budget, the government slapped a 19 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) on everyday items including flour, sugar and milk as well as water and electricity tariffs. "We will fight unreservedly against these measures which are weakening the purchasing power of the people of Niger," said Kassoum Issa, a spokesman for the organisers. Organisers said about 20,000 people took part in the march that wound its way peacefully through the capital Niamey, which lies on the banks of the Niger river. There was no estimate for the number of demonstrators from authorities. Niger, a landlocked semi-desert nation, is ranked the second poorest country in the world, according to the UN's Human Development Index for 2004. More than 60 percent of its 11 million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day. Last year's locust invasion coupled with poor rainfall has already led to food shortages. Officials for the Agriculture Ministry have said that Niger would have to import hundreds of thousands of cereals in 2005 to make up for shortfalls in the 2004 harvest and the government estimates more than three million people are at risk. "The government says it is fighting poverty with its battle horse but then it increases the price of products consumed by the poor," Boubacar, a civil servant who took part in Tuesday's rally, told IRIN. "It's a flagrant contradiction." Another Niamey resident, Mamadou, moaned that his utility bills had gone up by 10,000 CFA ($20) a month since the beginning of 2005, but his salary hadn't changed for the last seven years. "The government has no pity," he said. Civil servants wages were cut by between 10 and 30 percent in 1998 and have been frozen ever since. The organisers of Tuesday's march said they wanted VAT lifted on staple goods and salaries to be increased across the board to take into account more expensive living conditions. There was no immediate reaction from the government to their demands.