Hunger and desperation: Venezuela’s huge displacement crisis meanwhile Sinkies eat 1 dish and plain rice every meal due to high cost of living

[The_King]

Housewife Raihan Ibrahim feels the pinch whenever she shops for groceries near her five-room HDB flat in Bedok. 

Prices of groceries, lamented this 44-year-old to AsiaOne, has gone up markedly in the last few years, especially cooking oil and butter.

More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

So much so that Raihan came up with a savings hack of her own – by opting for frozen ingredients instead of the more expensive fresh ingredients to cope with rising food prices. 

Besides switching to frozen ingredients, Raihan has in her arsenal a more drastic measure, by making her family of four make do with just one dish with rice for every meal.  

"We are okay with that. We don’t need two to three dishes [for every meal],” she added.

You see, even before the pandemic, Raihan has been doing this to cut down on her family's grocery bill. 

And for good reason too, given today's climate. 

Fuelled by higher energy and food cost, Singapore's core inflation jumped to 3.3 per cent year on year in April – the highest level since February 2012.

The core inflation rate, which excludes accommodation and private transport costs, increased from 2.9 per cent in March.

In a CNA report in April, MAS warned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will have “significant repercussions” on global prices of food, which had already risen to close to record levels before the war. 

Egg prices up 32.4 per cent

But how exactly does this affect Singaporeans like Raihan when they do their grocery shopping? 

To get a better idea of how food prices have increased from pre Covid-19 days, we compared the prices of a few staple consumer items including rice, bread, eggs and cooking oil back in April 2019 to April this year. 

This data is from the Consumer Price Index (April 2022) which measures the average price changes over time of a fixed basket of consumption goods and services commonly purchased by the resident households.

From this data, we found out that the prices of the six items we selected have increased between 1.6 to a staggering 32.4 per cent. (See table below)

Consumer item	April 2019	April 2022	% increase
Premium Thai rice (Per 5kg)	$13.22	$13.43	1.6%
Ordinary white bread (Per 400g)	$1.72	$1.88	9.3%
Whole chicken, chilled (Per 1kg)	$6.38	$7.21	13%
Infant milk powder (Per 100g)	$6.07	$6.31	4%
Hen eggs (per 10)	$2.37	$3.14	32.4%
Cooking oil (Per 2kg)	$6.02	$7.25	20.4%

Before the pandemic in April 2019, the average cost of a bag of premium Thai rice was $13.22 per five kilograms.

The same bag of rice will set you back $13.43 today, a modest 1.6 per cent increase. 

The price of cooking oil, on the other hand, has gone up nearly 21 per cent, from $6.02 per two kilograms, to $7.25 today.

This price increase is partly due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where the Black Sea region accounts for a large proportion of global grain and edible oil supplies, CNA reported in March. 

The highest jump goes to eggs – a whopping 32.4 per cent – from $2.37 to $3.14 for a box of 10 eggs. 

This price hike is driven mainly by the rising cost of imported chicken feed, egg suppliers from Malaysia and Singapore told the Straits Times in March.

While the price of chicken has seen a modest 13 per cent increase, it is expected to be even more expensive in the future – following Malaysia's move to ban exports of the poultry from June 1.

We still have to buy

Before the pandemic, Raihan, with a $50 budget, would be able to buy one item from the list above with $14.22 to spare.

Today, with the price increases, she would only be left with $10.78 now, a drop of 24 per cent in savings. 

Going forward, it seems that there may be little respite for Singaporeans like Raihan, as MAS and MTI said that core inflation is forecast to pick up further in the coming months, reported the Straits Times on May 22. 

This will moderate towards the end of the year as some of the external inflationary pressures recede, they said. 

Despite the jump in prices of food items, Raihan told AsiaOne that consumers like her are left with "no choice since these items are essential".

"Whether they increase the price or not, we still have to buy," she said.

To help tide over the global rise in prices, all Singaporean households can collect $100 worth of Community Development Council (CDC) digital vouchers, which they can spend at more than 16,000 participating heartland merchants and hawkers.

$200 in vouchers will be disbursed in early 2023, and another $200 in 2024, with major supermarkets roped in for the next two years, the Straits Times reported. 

 

https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/1-dish-and-plain-rice-every-meal-thats-how-family-fights-rising-food-prices

 

 

 

Hunger and desperation: Venezuela’s huge displacement crisis

 

“I gave my children a small cup of rice. That was all we had. Then I left,” says Emily, sitting on a grassy mound near a river and a road that leads into the Colombian town of Pamplona. Like nearly six million other Venezuelans, she has left home for a neighbouring country.

Emily crossed the border into Colombia and walked uphill for two days to reach Pamplona, a journey born of desperation. As a hairdresser in Maracay, in the north-west of Venezuela, Emily didn’t earn enough to buy food for her three daughters. “Leaving my daughters was painful, but watching them go hungry was worse,” she says. “Leaving became not a choice, but a necessity.”

Venezuela, once the richest country in South America and with the largest oil reserves in the world, is now facing an acute economic and humanitarian crisis that has been decades in the making. Venezuela’s oil wealth was used by the government of Hugo Chavez, elected president on a socialist platform in 1998, to fund radical poverty reduction programmes known as the ‘Bolivarian missions’. Although these missions expanded social services and cut poverty by 20%, they were very expensive, and Chavez also pursued policies that precipitated a steady decline in Venezuela’s oil production, meaning a decline in available revenue. After Chavez’s death in 2013, president Nicolás Maduro continued with his predecessor’s policies and the combined effects of economic mismanagement and widespread corruption have left Venezuela in a dire situation.

The result is that a country with abundant natural resources now grapples with fuel shortages, power blackouts and long queues for petrol. According to last year’s national survey of living conditions in Venezuela, known by its Spanish abbreviation ENCOVI, 94.5% of the population lives in poverty, with more than three-quarters considered to be in extreme poverty. Since 2015, a fifth of the population has left the country, making Venezuela one of the largest displacement crises in the world, according to the UN Refugee Agency, not far behind Syria.

Emily is not alone on this last stretch to Pamplona. She met fellow Venezuelan Oswual on the journey. “Walking in the cold. That’s the most difficult thing,” says 21-year-old Oswual, who now sits nearby, wrapped in a blue blanket. “Our feet hurt and the tiredness is unbearable.” He explains that his parents and young brother are relying on him to send money for food from Colombia, otherwise, they won’t get to eat.

Emily and Oswual protect themselves from the cold

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Catherine Ellis/openDemocracy

A group of Venezuelans, wearing Crocs and carrying torn backpacks, is huddled near the grassy mound. Some are trying to comfort their cold and hungry children. On average, 2,000 Venezuelans crossed into Colombia every day in 2021, according to the UN. Many of the Venezuelan caminantes (walkers) pass through Pamplona once they enter Colombia. The tranquil university town is now firmly on the migrant route. Most of the caminantes don’t have the $5 bus fare to get to Pamplona from the Venezuelan border. Day after day, they arrive with sore feet, tired bodies and symptoms of altitude sickness. The flow of people may have slowed since Venezuelans first started to leave their country in droves in 2015, but it shows no signs of stopping.

“Before, you might see 500 people a day passing through Pamplona, now it’s more like 150. It’s never zero,” Vanessa Purlaez, director and founder of one of the town’s two shelters, tells openDemocracy. When the caminantes first started arriving in the town, Purlaez’s cousin would host 30 to 40 of them at her home overnight. Soon, Purlaez and her friends and family were all helping out, though they initially worked in secret, not knowing if there would be consequences from the authorities. Then, five years ago, Purlaez decided to open a shelter. “People really need transport. They need jackets, blankets, food and shelter,” she says, adding that they also need psychological support to help them deal with all they have been through and to prepare for what is to come. “Many are disillusioned… the hope has gone from their faces.” Once, many of the caminantes were searching for a better future; now they are just looking to survive, she says.

As we talk, a young couple arrives at Purlaez’s shelter and has to be turned away. The shelter, which prioritises women with children, is full. The young people stand in the darkness outside, before continuing up the road. They will wander around Pamplona, not knowing where they will sleep that night. It is a common enough scene in the town, where the number of caminantes exceeds the capacity of the two shelters. 

Inside Purlaez’s shelter, Zairet nurses her newborn. The baby arrived shortly after Zairet reached the shelter. She has named her Danna. Two of her other children play in the small room she shares with other Venezuelan women who have been walking from the Colombian border. “It was a sudden decision to come,” Zairet tells openDemocracy. “I was pregnant. I didn’t have enough money for food or nappies. I just got so desperate.” Zairet has four more children, but they are still in Venezuela, with her mother.

Zairet says there has been a change in the flow of people out of Venezuela. Before the pandemic, it was mainly young men who crossed into Colombia, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). But now, with the economic situation worsened by COVID, says Purlaez, “ you see more nuclear families and more women walking alone, or with children to find work, or join their families who’ve already left. Whole families are leaving Venezuela.” 

 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/venezuela-immigration-crisis-en/

[socrates469bc]

they choose to believe a joker, so no sympathy from limpeh.

 

wahahahahahahahahahah

 

[The_King]

2 minutes ago, socrates469bc said:

they choose to believe a joker, so no sympathy from limpeh.

 

wahahahahahahahahahah

 

dont laugh we will catch up soon. 2% gst and after GE i got feeling GST increase again

 

dont get me wrong increase GST is to help the poor. (not i say one hor)

Edited May 25, 2022 by The_King

[socrates469bc]

Just now, The_King said:

dont laugh we will catch up soon. 2% gst and after GE i got feeling GST increase gst

 

dont get me wrong increase GST is to help the poor. (not i say one hor)

 

limpeh dont know what pappyland can barter trade for food besides these clowns.

 

[The_King]

Just now, socrates469bc said:

 

limpeh dont know what pappyland can barter trade for food besides these clowns.

 

i blame the 61%. they are the clown

[socrates469bc]

1 minute ago, The_King said:

i blame the 61%. they are the clown