|
|
Zimbabwe: Bakers Breathe Sigh of Relief But
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Financial Gazette (Harare)
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Kumbirai Mafunda
Harare
ZIMBABWE'S embattled millers and bakers have been granted a temporary relief after the government allowed them to hike the retail price of bakers flour and bread, the country's second staple food.
The National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC) recently approved both millers and bakers requests for price reviews, with the retail price of bakers flour going up to $1.2 billion per tonne and $5.4 billion for a tonne of pre-pack flour.
The NIPC also gave bakers the green light to sell bread at $6.6 million per standard loaf and $10 million for a loaf of super white bread.
But the relief comes with strings attached as the NIPC ordered millers to commit 80 percent of their flour supplies to producing bakers flour and 20 percent for pre-pack flour.
The state-run price policing body also ordered bakers to devote 80 percent of their flour obtained from millers to manufacturing standard bread loaves and allocate the remaining 20 percent to the baking of fancy loaves and other confectionaries.
"The bakers and millers are allowed to use 80 percent of the flour to standard loaf and 20 percent to fancy loaves and confectionaries and millers will commit 80 percent of flour to bakers' flour and 20 percent to pre-packs, respectively," read part of the NIPC letter signed by the pricing body's acting chief executive Esau Ndlovu and copied to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
The government last gazetted the prices of bread in November when it hiked the price to $200 000/ loaf from $100 000. However most bakers had been selling bread above these gazetted prices to remain viable.
|
The decision to charge prices above the gazetted ones landed an executive with one of the country's largest bakers, Bakers Inn, in trouble after he was arrested for violating price controls.
The police also arrested two executives with the country's leading millers Blue Ribbon Foods and National Foods -- Mike Manga and Jeremy Brooke for breaching controls on the sale of flour.
However, bakers and millers told The Financial Gazette that the relief granted by the NIPC came late as production costs have soared. Bakers said they were pressing the NIPC to allow them to sell bread at $18 million/loaf to recoup costs and avoid bankruptcy while millers are also asking the pricing body to let them charge $5.6 billion for a tonne of baking flour.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Financial Gazette. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
