The South Africa Cabinet has expressed concern about rising food and transport prices in South Africa “and the impact this is having on all South Africans, particularly the poor”.
According to government spokesperson Themba Maseko — reporting on Thursday after a Cabinet meeting in Pretoria on Wednesday — Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana “will engage with the food-pricing monitoring committee on this matter and report back to Cabinet as a matter of urgency”.
The matter of how to tackle rising transport prices was not referred to in a Cabinet document released on Thursday.
The Grain Handling Organisation of Southern Africa (Gosa) recently warned consumers to prepare themselves for very high food prices in 2007.
The organisation’s spokesperson, Annatjie Loio, said in March: “Our government has already expressed concern about consumer spending but this year the increased spending will be on foodstuffs.”
Gosa said then that prices of various end products in the animal-feed industry will be increased and that this will result in a chain reaction influencing meat, milk and egg prices.
Loio reiterated concerns that the el-Nino-induced drought and heatwave have drastically slashed the once-promising crop size to between five and six million tons.
The National Agricultural Marketing Council’s data also showed recently that the price of the maize meal had rocketed about 36% for the 12 months ended December 2006. — I-Net Bridge