Screws tightened on errant businesses

ABOUT 98 business entities have been prosecuted, while 54 were slapped with compliance notices in Manicaland in the first quarter of 2024 as Government tightens screws on unethical trade conduct.

A check by The Manica Post revealed that large supermarket chains (names withheld) have an incomprehensible pricing structure whereby some prices on display on certain products are different from the ones clients are charged at the till points, especially when buying using the local currency.

For example, some products are marked in the local Zimbabwean dollar currency on the shelves, but when the customer gets to the till and uses the greenback they get a nominal discount meant to incentivise them to continue purchasing using foreign currency.

However, the story is different when a client opts to buy that same product using the ZWL. The client is charged almost double the price. The price is indexed on the parallel market equivalence of the United States dollar. This is despite the fact that these supermarkets display the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe daily market exchange rate, plus 10 percent on their notice boards.

This means the display of the daily bank rate is meant to hoodwink unsuspecting clients who do not bother to check the discrepancies.

This trend is understood to be a move by supermarket chains to compete favourably with tuckshops. It is also deliberately calculated to dissuade customers from using the local currency.

In response to that, Government has moved in to restore sanity in public business transactions, with companies involved in such unethical practices either being prosecuted or issued with compliance notices.

The companies are being penalised for a multiplicity of malpractices that include, but not limited to failure to display prices, displaying disclaimer clauses, selling expired products,