In Luanda’s Jumbo supermarket, a half-litre tub of imported vanilla ice-cream used to cost $25 (£15), testament to the Angolan capital’s rank as one of the world’s most expensive cities.
With new import tariffs imposed last month, that price has jumped to $31, enough to make even wealthy locals and expatriates pause and putting the treat even further beyond the reach of millions of poor Angolans struggling to feed their families.
Luanda already ranks as the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, with the presence of thousands of foreign workers, many involved in the oil industry, helping to drive up prices.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer, still rebuilding after it emerged in 2002 from a 27-year civil war, imports three quarters of the goods it consumes.
The government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled since 1979, imposed higher import tariffs last month on hundreds of items, from garlic to cars. The stated aim is to try to diversify the heavily oil-dependent economy and nurture farming and industry, sectors which have remained weak.
But this is expected to hike prices for consumers, hitting the less privileged sectors of society especially hard. Mr Dos Santos, one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders, has been accused by critics of widening a dangerous gap between the rich and the poor that risks causing social unrest.
“Things were already hard and this will make it even tougher,” says Jessy Andrade, 32, a mother of four shopping at Jumbo. She pointed to the meagre contents of her bag before going back to her occupation as a street-corner currency trader.
Some staples – flour, beans, rice, palm oil, sugar, powdered milk and soap – will be exempt from the tariffs. But not other vegetables and fruit, imported from Europe or neighbours such as Namibia, which will carry a new top rate of 50 percent duty. The government believes these can be produced at home and the tariff barrier is designed to encourage this.
Oil output has soared since 2002, but the south-west African nation’s agriculture and industry are relatively undeveloped. They make up 17 percent of gross domestic product, compared with oil’s 41 percent.
“The tariff increases will create inflation, at least in the short term, and affect consumption, especially for those with low incomes,” says Salim Valimamade, an economist at Luanda’s Catholic University.
Angolan officials, however, play down the inflation risk.
“We can think about the possibility of a rise in prices of the products for which duties were increased, but generalised inflation, which affects the essential goods which are exempt, we cannot see,” says Garcia Afonso, the head of trade and commerce at Angola’s Customs Service.
Inflation has fallen over the past decade from 70 per cent to 7.7 per cent at the end of last year. But shopkeepers say the import tariff hikes have forced them to hike prices by up to 20 percent.
Mr Dos Santos estimated last year that 36 percent of Angola’s 18 million people live in poverty, but dismissed the risk of income inequalities causing social upheaval, saying most people supported the government’s policies.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, had a different view, urging Mr Dos Santos to reduce the inequality gap and warning about the high cost of living.
Nowhere is that gap more visible than in Luanda’s Ilha do Cabo, a peninsula that separates Luanda Bay from the Atlantic. Ritzy beach bars and luxury condominiums that cater to expats and rich Angolans are mixed amid more humble eateries where poorer Luandans enjoy a cold Cuca beer and grilled fish.
Sandra Oliveira is one of a dozen women grilling cuttlefish on small barbecues in a lot they have occupied for decades. Their clients sit on shabby plastic chairs placed directly on the dusty ground.
“I can sell a beer for $1 and a plate of cuttlefish for $10, but the margins are tight, and pushing our costs up will end up pushing us out of here and take away our livelihoods,” she says.
“Which business do you think the higher price will hit? My little barbecue or the expensive places?”
On the Atlantic side of the peninsula, upmarket restaurants with names such as Caribe, Coconuts and Chill Out attract a wealthier clientele. Here, a Cuca can easily cost $4 and a meal for less than $50 is deemed a bargain.
“This is already a madly expensive city for everyone. A weekly trip to the supermarket for two already takes $500,” says a British oil worker outside one of the Ilha restaurants.
While authorities in Luanda have cracked down on informal traders, an oil-driven construction bonanza in the city has seen modern European-style superstores, such as Jumbo and the Kero chain, springing up.
“I only come to these shops when I cannot find basic items at the informal markets,” money changer Andrade says, adding she earns about $15 on “good days”, which she says are becoming rare.
When the government knocked down the historic Kinaxixi market in 2008 and then two years later did the same to Roque Santeiro, Africa’s biggest open-air market, it put thousands of vendors onto the streets.
Since then it has tried to corral them into newly built markets, often using rough tactics and confiscation of goods, but most say the new locations are too far away for customers.
Prices at markets in informal settlements such as Sambizanga, outside Luanda, are sometimes even higher than in shiny new supermarkets
Meanwhile, the new supermarkets, with their huge cooled areas, spacious car parks and conspicuous security guards, are drawing expatriates and Angolans lucky enough to work in oil, banking or construction.
The average national salary in 2010, the latest year for which official data is available, was around $260 per month. In the finance sector the average was 10 times higher and in the oil business over 20 times higher, or around $5,400.
“Portuguese, Chinese, South Africans, they shop here but more and more Angolans too,” says a worker at a Kero shop, asking not to be named. “You can see from their cars and clothes that they are the ones doing well.”
At the other end of the scale, the Pombinha market in the Sambizanga slum near central Luanda is a maze of muddy alleys crammed with women selling goods. Most products here are also imported, the only local ones visible are baskets and bananas.
“Prices are only just lower here than in the supermarkets, sometimes even higher since we buy from middlemen while the big shops buy in bulk from abroad,” says vendor Esperanca Gil. “But people come here as they don’t have money to shop monthly or weekly, so they have to buy day-by-day.”
