Guinea caps bottled water prices after ban on plastic sachets

Make this your preferred source to get more updates from this publisher on Google.

CONARKY, Guinea - Guinea capped prices on bottled water on Wednesday amid a shortage after a plastic ban scuttled the selling of pocket-sized drinking water sachets used by a large part of the population.

The nationwide ban on plastic packaging and other items came into effect on September 20 and targeted sachets in particular, which are sold in a number of African countries.

The sachets contain approximately 40 centiliters (1.7 cups) of water and are drunk by much of the population due to their affordability at 500 Guinean francs ($0.05) per sachet.

The ban caused a rush on bottled water and within days stocks ran out and prices skyrocketed.

It has also raised fears about people resorting to water from boreholes and wells that is unfit for drinking.

Souleymane Barry, a private-sector worker who was on his lunch break in the Coleah neighborhood near Conakry's city center, told AFP he had been to five shops "and still no water".

"If I can't drink, I won't eat," he said.

The Union for the Defense of Guinea Consumers has expressed concern over the drinking water shortage.

"We are calling on the government for a one-year moratorium" on implementation of the plastic ban, its president M'Bany Sidibe told AFP.

He emphasized that "viable alternatives" must be found before water sachets are banned.

Ben Youssouf Keita, a physician, said that while the quality of water in the sachets was "generally acceptable", consumers were now drinking from boreholes or wells where water "is often unfit for consumption".

He said he feared a rise in diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid.

"At the very least, the government should launch a major prevention campaign urging the population to boil water from boreholes or wells to eliminate bacteria," he said.

The government decree on prices came into effect Wednesday and caps the retail price of a six-pack of 1.5-litre bottles at 25,000 Guinean francs ($2.84), for example.

Retailers are required to display prices and wholesale transactions must be accompanied by an itemized invoice. — Agence France-Presse