Policy consistence crucial to economic growth

◆ the growth of our economy,” he added.

Analysts have also stressed that Government should ease the tax burden on local industries as the country remains one of the most taxed nations in the world. Government is grappling with fiscal deficits annually to meet its expenditure owing to waning revenue flows.

“Government should look at ways to consolidate its revenue base through various other channels that are not threatening to the growth of industry. VAT has been in place long back, but we have to consider the state of the economy right now, it certainly doesn’t need to be reinstated because we are having a situation where there are very low disposable incomes hence this offsets demand of local products and goes down to affect industry,” he added.

Consumer Council of Zimbabwe president, Ms Roselyn Siyachitema, told Business Post that her association was yet to complete its research on selected product items that have been affected by the latest instrument and pledged to push for favourable prices once they finalise their research.

“We are still doing our research as to by what extent the price increases have been pegged. Right now we are still doing our research and hopefully in a few days’ time we will be able to come up with detailed facts on the ground,”

“We will engage policy makers upon finalisation of our research but for now we are speaking to retailers on getting actual facts,” she said.

However, a check by Business Post on Tuesday afternoon revealed that retailers have stuck to their price increases. Price of 2kg rice has been raised from an average of US$1.60 at the beginning of the year to around US$2.10, with 1kg beef that was at US$3.50 now at around US$4.40 on average.

Zimbabwe Grain Millers Association president, Mr Tafadzwa Musarara, said retailers were simply abiding by the laws of the land, hence Government should enact an instrument suspending SI 20, not by merely announcing it verbally.

“There has to be Statutory Instrument which speaks to suspending the one put in place first for business players to comply with the suspension.

“We have to consider that come six months down the line when companies go through audits ZIMRA will claim their money using the instrument (SI 20) and if we do not have a counter instrument seconding the suspension it becomes problematic for retailers who would have complied to the suspension today,” said Mr Musarara.