As schools reopen for the new academic year, many stationery shop owners as well as parents are complaining about the increase in prices of books and other items.
Some traders say there has been 25% to 50% increment in stationery prices which is affecting their businesses.
Parents may not be able to meet the needs of their children if the price of stationery is not reduced.
In some schools, teachers are mostly instructed by school authorities to send away students who fail to bring prescribed textbooks to the classroom.
Yet, some students are not able to meet the requirements because their parents are not able to afford these books
The reopening of schools has given parents no option but to meet the needs of their wards to begin the term.
However, some parents and guardians are finding it difficult to get all the required items due to the price hikes.
Speaking to JoyNews, some parents lamented the high prices of stationery.
“Ever since my child started school, I’ve never experienced such a hike in stationery prices. This is the worst increment of prices and we plead with the government to come to our aid.” says a parent who was in the market to buy books for her ward who is in Junior High School.”
On his part, a guardian who was there to buy some stationery for his ward also said “It’s so frustrating, it seems prices of items are increased daily. I think prices of books now are too high as compared to the previous years. We came last week but couldn’t buy any, so we had to leave because our money was not sufficient to buy what we needed.
“We have other needs to take care of so government should do something about the prices.”
Some traders also told the news team that there has been low patronage by parents due to the increment in prices, so Government must help.
“Parents are not patronizing our goods like before due to the economic hardship and increment in prices. I’ve sold books for 20 years and I’ve never experienced such low sales .
“We are pleading with the government to help” says a trader.
Meanwhile, a member of the Master Man Publication Board attributed the hike in prices of books and some stationery materials to duty paid on the importation of raw materials for their production and government’s introduction of taxes on books and some materials they produce.
“We as publishers have done the necessary things needed to produce the books, the reason why the prices have gone up is because, we import most of our raw materials for production and have to pay huge sums of money as duty and this definitely will reflect on the prices. The new taxes introduced by government is also one factor and the prices is expected to go higher if implemented.”
