Aleppo people resent Syrian government new bread system
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – On Tuesday, residents of the city of Aleppo, north Syria, expressed their dissatisfaction with the government’s recent decision regarding the reduction of allocations of bread and its distribution only through the “smart card” mechanism.
On August 1, the new bread distribution mechanism that Ziyad Haza’, the General Manager of the Syrian Bakeries Corporation had announced earlier in May, was implemented.
“I got 14 loaves of bread, which are all my allocations, and they are not enough for me and my family for one day,” Mazen Barakat from al-Midan neighborhood told North Press.
“I have to get another bundle of bread in the black market to meet my family need for one single day,” he added.
He mentioned that he previously got three bundles of bread with 7 loaves in each.
But with the new system of bread distribution, he has to buy another bundle at 1,000 SYP, according to Barakat.
“What is the use of that smart card, other than insulting and standing at the bakery for hours every day?” He asked angrily.
In mid-July, the Syrian Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection raised the price of the bundle of bread from 100 to 200 SYP.
Abdullah Muslim, from al-Jaberiya neighborhood, told North Press that the government is behaving as if it is giving charity to the citizen by claiming that providing bread costs it billions Syrian Pounds every day, “but today I cannot even get my family’s bread allocations.”
“I waited for six hours in the queue to get two bundle of bread. And then the government simply decides to reduce our allocations of bread. This is unfair,” he added.
For months, most of the government-held areas have been witnessing long queues in front of the bakeries to get the subsidized bread, especially after the implementation of the smart card system and specifying the allocations of each family according to the number of its members.