Rukungiri traders count losses this Christmas season

Traders in Kebisoni Market. Photos by Caleb Bahikaho

Traders in Rukungiri, who are dealing with perishable goods, are counting losses because few buyers have come to the market this festive season.

Hadijja Begumisa, the chairperson of Kebisoni Market traders association said they have enough stock, but they don’t see anyone buying as it used to be during Christmas days.

“Most of us lose two to three kilogrammes of tomatoes every day that have decayed, which was not the case previously in such festival days,” she said.

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She added that they buy tomatoes from the farmers at sh800 per kg and we are selling at sh1,200, but after failing to get customers, we are now selling them at the same price we buy them from farmers.

Begumisa said in other Christmas seasons at such time they would be in villages looking for tomatoes, cabbages, onions, watermelon and many others to satisfy their customers, but now they are busy throwing away the rotten ones.

Mercy Namara, who owns a stall at Kebisoni Market, says she gets between sh4,000 and sh6,000= a day compared to previous festival seasons where she would get between sh100,000 and sh150,000= a day in such  last week of Christmas festival.

Namara attributed it to the prolonged dry spell that resulted into serious famine, which has never happened in Rukungiri many years ago.

“Most people who are coming from Kampala only carry posho because they know there is nothing to eat at home apart from beans which farmers are harvesting now,” she said.

Julius Mugisha said they have made losses in perishable products such as tomatoes, cabbages and pineapples.