By Brenda Kayo:
Industry and Trade Minister Vitumbiko Mumba has given bread and cooking oil manufacturers a two-day ultimatum to reduce prices of their products.
Mumba said he would close companies that would not comply with the demand.
On Monday, Mumba visited Bread Talk, Capital Foods and Happie Foods in Lilongwe to assess compliance with the price reduction directive.
During his visit, Mumba found that at Capital Foods, a wheat flour manufacturing company reduced wheat flour prices from K230,000 to K120,000 per 50 kilogrammes (kg) per bag.
Bread talk has reduced the price of bread from K4,100 to K3,800 and Happie Foods has reduced the price of 20 littles of cooking oil from K160,000 to K100,000.
However, Mumba said he was dissatisfied with Bread Talk’s price reduction from K4,100 to K3,800.
He has asked them to further reduce the price to K3,200 within two days.
Mumba also said, starting from next week, he would be visiting all bakery manufacturers and cooking oil manufacturing companies in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu to assess their levels of compliance.
“We have seen that one of the wheat flour manufacturers has reduced the price of wheat flour; so, we are calling upon all bakery manufacturers to reduce the price of bread. If you will not comply, then you will face closure.
“This also applies to cooking oil manufacturers; we expect you to reduce the prices of cooking oil,” Mumba.
Happie Foods Company’s owner Happie Nyirenda has, meanwhile, requested the minister to continue providing them with foreign exchange to aid in their production.
“We want as much as to reduce cooking oil [prices] to up to K90,000 but we want the ministries’ support; they should continue providing us with forex,” Nyirenda said.
In his national budget statement, Minister of Finance Simplex Chithyola Banda announced that starting from April 1, the government would remove VAT from wheat to reduce the prices of bread.
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