A STORM is brewing between the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Retailers (CZR) and the National Bakers’ Association of Zimbabwe (NBAZ) after
the latter proposed to hike the price of bread from $1,50 to about $5 starting
this week to cushion bakers against increasing production costs.
NBAZ president Ngoni Mazango last week warned of a massive
increase in the price of bread, citing high production costs and foreign
currency shortages.
He said the current production cost ranged from US$1 to
US$1,10 per loaf, which is equivalent to between $4 and $5 bond on the parallel
market, implying that if there is no immediate intervention to avail foreign
currency, the retail price of one loaf would be over $5 bond.
“I want to make this clear. This is not the price of bread,
but this is the cost that we meet when manufacturing the bread. As I said, we
are still in engaging the authorities for us to receive enough money that will
be able to get us the raw materials we need and also pay the arrears we owe to
our suppliers. As we stand right now, we have arrears with our suppliers and
they have said that they will not supply us with anything until we clear those
arrears,” Mazango said.
But CZR president Denford Mutashu yesterday accused Mazango
of being alarmist, saying government was doing everything in its power to
normalise the situation.
“It is important to for us to remain calm and not cause
alarm in the minds of the consumers. No one can just wake up and increase the
prices of these commodities,” he said.
“Consultation and dialogue should be done before a decision
is made. It is not good to scare the market, but rather there should be
dialogue in which these issues are raised and are deliberated on. Prices [of
commodities] like bread, sugar and maize meal cannot be increased just like
that.” Newsday
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