Please, not the bread!

Written by Cherelle Jackson

My brother was sourly disappointed when he discovered that the price of bread has increased by 30sene.
“Anything but the bread,” he said in a resigned and dissatisfied tone.
With three children, his wife and two student boarders, every sene counts in his weekly budget.
So this editorial will once again focus on the issue of basic economics with a slight twist on the ironies of societal attitudes towards this issue.
Coincidentally a Newsline potential columnist confessed that there’s too much serious writing in this country.
“It’s all heavy, and very serious,” the writer said.
Good point, perhaps we are.
We have indeed focused on the heavy as of late, but who wouldn’t, with the current sorry state of affairs, who can help but write profusely if not angrily on hard hitting issues of today.
So instead of defying what the potential columnist has said, this writer will merely affirm it.
Something smells utterly rotten in the State of Samoa, and as one American cousin would say: “There ain’t nothin’ we can do about it.”
As the economy slides into a state of unrelenting failure our leaders are bickering over who should stay and who should go, the business community are not going down the Right Hand Drive debate without a fight, the bankers are not exactly reveling in profits meanwhile the Samoan people are paying for it, one sene at a time.
Samoas economy is falling flat on its face, and the only obvious attempts so far have been but to stamp it further to the ground.
In a report by the Central Bank of Samoa, the update of November 2007, a month after the RHD switch was announced, the report saw the graceful decline of economic indicators to figures avoided by many an economically healthy nations.
In that month, trade deficit increased, export earnings declined, imports rose, crude oil prices soared and tourism earnings dropped.
This is what college students learn in “what not to do to ones developing economy.”
So it is no surprise that the price of bread, the one food product that has for the longest time remained the fallback feed for low income families, has taken a hit from economic misdemeanors at the national level.
The economy is stagnant, while we await the end result to the debate of the century, the RHD.
If the cost of basic food products has increased, and the wages remain unchanged, naturally the people will have to turn elsewhere to feed their families and to survive the next day.
Samoa has gone back to the basics, we have reinvented the “survival of the fittest” debate, unwillingly so.
Samoas reliance on remittances have dropped, which means that in the last few years Samoans have harnessed a sense of self reliance that does not mirror our national efforts at being truly independent.
The Police last week indicated dismay at the growing number of drugs on the streets of Samoa, the sale, distribution and use of marijuana is rife, meanwhile theft is also progressively climbing especially around the town area, and prostitution is no longer a hidden profession while young street vendors continue to crowd the streets of Apia at nightfall.
All of these habits are fast and easy money for the low to no income families.
Some are willing to forsake morality to feed their families.
Are they to be blamed?
What systems are there in place in this country to ensure that everyone has the right to education, to an income and to quality of life?
Are we to turn to the state?
All these factors play in a much wider, much bigger picture of where Samoa is heading.
If nothing is done soon, prices will keep rising, the quality of living will decline, crimes will rise and the people who are suffering will keep suffering.
The gap between the financially rich and poor will only expand.
The increase in the price of bread is a pretty accurate indicator of this trend.
But knowing the recent responses by the Government this writer is certain that if asked about the price of bread, the answer will probably be similar to that offered by France’s iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette: “If they have no bread, then let them eat cake.”
Manuia le Aso Sa Samoa