Many have to readjust their lives by cutting down costs in order to be able to survive.
The situation becomes worse when a family can bearly feed themselves with three square meals a day.
That is the situation of a 28-year-old single mother of three, Salamatu Ahmed.
Salamutu Ahmed hawks sachet water, popularly called "pure water” in traffic and makes as low as GH¢9 profit a day. It is with this profit she feeds her family. An amount that barely allows an individual to have a sumptuous meal.
Her baby daddy abandoned her and the three children, therefore, she had to become the breadwinner of the family.
In a video report by The Independent Ghana, Salamatu Ahmed said after her baby daddy left 2 years ago, she had to take up the challenge and find a way for her kids to survive by selling pure water.
She said a typical day starts for her as early as 5.00 am, where she has to prepare her children for school so she can adequately prepare herself to hawk around the on the Achimota, ABC stretch.
Salamatu and her three kids, 8-year-old Majid, 4-year-old Samira and 2-years-old Lad, reside in a kiosk at Alogboshie.
“The father of my children left us when my last born was just a month old. I then moved with my children from where we were staying to this kiosk, where I was introduced to a woman who helped me start the pure water business,” she explained in the report sighted by GhanaWeb.
Unable to afford a deep freezer, Salamatu Ahmed has to opt for a more affordable way of getting her water and drinks chilled, thus, by walking several kilometres to buy ice blocks, then she heads to her supplier’s house to cool her water.
“Selling in traffic is risky, there are times I have witnessed a car hit some of the hawkers and it is scary, but you have no option but to move on.
“On countless occasions, motorists knock down some of the sellers and in extreme cases, some of them die,” Ms. Ahmed narrated.
She noted that she is able to make GH¢9.00 a day by selling pure water but when she is able to add carbonated drinks to the water, she is able to make GH¢100.00 on a good day.
“At first, I could sell 5 bags of water in a day but now due to the weather, I can only sell 1 or 2 bags. On a day when I include drinks to the water, I can make GH¢100 but without the drinks, I make as low as GH¢9.00," Salamatu Ahmed explained.
She indicated that she spends on average GH¢30.00 on her kids daily. That is GH¢18.00 for their feeding in school, thus, GH¢6.00 per child. And the remaining GH¢12.00 takes care of their breakfast and supper because she usually gets home late.
"Days that I don’t make much, I don’t let them go to school. Providing for my kids is my priority, that’s why despite the challenges I go through every day, I continue to sell pure water [and make sure that my kids are ok],” she stressed.
