Cabinet ministers are beginning to suspect once again that there is more than meets the eye in the recent rapid rise in the price of agricultural products and in the cost of transportation. They are concerned about the possibility of profiteering among food processors and retailers. So they have asked minister of agriculture and land affairs Lulama Xingwana to engage with the food-pricing monitoring committee and to report back to Cabinet as a matter of urgency.
“The committee was created to establish whether the rise in prices was not due to elements of excessive profiteering retailers in our country,” said Cabinet spokesperson Themba Maseko. Thoko Didiza, the then agriculture minister, set up the monitoring committee in 2002 because of suspicions at that time that the commodity market was being manipulated, and because of concerns about concentration and market power in the food manufacturing and retail sector.
It began its work in earnest the next year, but after exhaustive enquiries it was unable to find any examples of unfair manipulation of prices. Prices rose, but once inflation abated, the accusations against the sector also abated. The committee did find that there were high differences between the wholesale and retail price of food in rural stores, but they put this down to the higher cost of transportation to remoter parts. – Michael Hamlyn
