22 May 2002
The South African Communist Party (SACP) calls on suppliers of to respond positively and urgently to the call by Shoprite to reduce the prices of food products in the light of the current improvement in the rand-dollar exchange rate.
The SACP also calls on Shoprite itself and other retailers to ensure that they pass on the benefit of reduced costs to consumers. Without this, the reduction of prices by suppliers will be meaningless.
Once more, the SACP re-iterates its call for the zero-rating (exemption from VAT) of additional basic foodstuff beyond maize and flour. Also, as the SACP has argued before, all South Africans must mobilise our people to register and claim social grants from the state in order to cushion our people from hunger in the immediate period.
It is also in this context that the SACP has called for a comprehensive social security system and the promotion of co-operatives in order to ensure food security and diversification of ownership in the food production chain.
In the long term, the SACP also believes that the liberalisation of food prices such that they are subject to international markets and the rand-dollar exchange is neither desirable and inevitable. This means that food products produced locally are not determined by locally based input costs but are more influenced by speculative activity. The SACP therefore calls for a review of the determination of food prices with the intention to introduce effective regulation and affordability of basic foodstuffs.
CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information and Publicity
South African Communist Party (SACP)
Tel - 011 339 +IBM- 3621/2
Fax - 011 339 +IBM- 4244/6880
Email - sacp1@wn.apc.org