Tomato prices shoot up in Kumasi

The sellers who travel from Ghana to Burkina Faso for the commodities say prices of tomatoes at the farms have gone up for over 100 percent causing hikes in the commodity’s price to the final consumer.

The traders among other things blamed the situation on the high cost of the CFA franc, exponential increase in transportation of the commodity and the consistent attacks on traders by some armed men at Burkina Faso.

Addressing the media at Kumasi Racecourse market on Monday April 3, 2023, the Queen Mother for Tomato Sellers Association in the Ashanti Region, Nana Abena Serwaa disclosed that, they needed a sum of GH¢10,000 for an equivalent of one million CFA while, as in most recent past the same GH¢10,000 could give one almost two million CFA.

She added that, the changes in the CFA franc means traders will need more cedi equivalent to get the same boxes of tomatoes they usually buy at the farm and also, transportation for one cargo car which cost Gh¢15,000 is now Gh¢30,000 for the same boxes of tomatoes.

“As if that was not enough, most of our women who traveled to Burkina for tomatoes were attacked by some armed men, they lost millions of CFA franc in the attacks”, she said.

she continued by saying that, “Two of our women were recently killed while going for tomatoes. They were attacked near a certain town after Dakola. The armed men stopped the first of five vehicles and started demanding money. The women gave them all the money in their bags but they were not satisfied. They pulled out all the women from the vehicles and started beating them.”

She called on authorities to meet find lasting solutions to the problem in order to help reduce the prices of tomatoes

Nana Serwaa said they were not happy with the rate at which prices of tomatoes were soaring and called on the government to do something about it.