Rocketing Oil Price

South Sudan recently suffered from rocketing of oil price and shortage of it. JEN team which had conducted researches at project sites had not been able to obtain fuel for cars and they had to stop the research once in order to go to buy some fuel to further area. We of course stocked some fuel for emergency, however the situation was serious that few days.

Not only fuel price, but also daily essentials’ price, included price of food, rocketed. For example, 25kg of corn flour had used to be 58 pound (applox. 1,600 yen), but it was 78 pound (applox. 2,150 yen)at that time, we could have bought 8 small breads by 1 pound, however , we could only buy 4 breads at that time. Recently many people cued in front of local bakery for buying breads.

According to local people and media, this was not only a problem of Sudan. The same situation applied to East African countries. South Sudan relies on imported fuel and flour from Khartoum、a capital of North Sudan, and Uganda, nevertheless people in Uganda participated in some demonstrations against rising price and it caused stacking up the supply.

There were large number of issues which they had to face before their independence on 9th July.