BAGHDAD, Iraq — Faced with sharp price rises, a decline in
the buying power of the dinar and rising unemployment, Iraqis enter the Muslim
fasting month of Ramadan with a feeling of dread.
اضافة اعلان
“After a whole day of fasting, we have to eat something,”
even if the price of a kilo of tomatoes has more than doubled, said Umm
Hussein, a single mother of five who has no salary.
She struggles each month to raise the $45 rent for their
modest home.
Like 16 million of Iraq’s 40-million population living under
the poverty line, Umm Hussein relies on her ration card for food.
Under the legacy from the 1990s when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein
was under a stringent international embargo, every Iraqi whose household heads
earns less than $1,000 a month is entitled to certain basic provisions at
subsidized prices.
But this year, “we’ve only received the rations for
February,” said Abu Seif, 36, who like his father before him has the job of
distributing bags of subsidized goods.
“We still haven’t got the rations for Ramadan,” during which
Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, a period that started this week.
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi had promised extra rations
for the holy month. But “people are coming in or calling every day to ask when
they’re arriving,” said Abu Seif.
In Abu Ammar’s grocery store, the credit line has been
stretched so far that he fears not being able to pay his suppliers any more.
With prices rising sharply, “some families owe more than
200,000 dinars ($130)”, the grocer told AFP.
The authorities in energy-rich Iraq, with revenues slashed
by the decline in world oil prices, last year devalued the dinar, which has
lost 25 percent of its value against the dollar.
As a result, for example, the price for a bottle of cooking
oil has gone up to 2,500 dinars, from 1,500 dinars.
No joking matter
On top of price hikes, Covid-19 restrictions such as
lockdowns and curfews have killed jobs, especially the day jobs on which many
Iraqis rely following decades of conflict.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says Iraqis are
trapped in a vicious circle.
“Over 90 percent of small and medium enterprises in the food
and agriculture sector reported being severely to moderately affected by the
pandemic. To cope with decreased revenue, more than 50 percent either let staff
go or reduced salaries,” it says.
A joke doing the rounds on Iraqi social media goes something
like: “This year, salaries are in the group of death with Covid-19 and Eid
Al-Fitr (the feast marking the end of Ramadan). Not sure they will make it
though to the next round.”
Haider, a 32-year-old civil servant, says it’s no laughing
matter.
“Ramadan fills me with dread. We need a lot of things for
the house and new clothes for the children,” he said.
Even in normal times, he struggles to pay the rent, for
daily expenses and electricity charges with his monthly salary of $600.
Electricity is one of the heaviest financial burdens, in a
country with at times 20-hours-a-day power cuts that force Iraqis to turn to
private generators that run on pricey fuel.
Abu Ahmad, a 32-year-old colleague, says he will skip the
traditions this Ramadan.
“I’m not going to be giving big dinners at my place, so as
not to spread COVID-19,” he said. “But also, because I can’t afford it.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
