Crying fowl over duties

DEAR SIR — We refer to your report, “Poulterers fear influx of chicken from EU” (April 3). It would not be prudent for us to comment on the detail of any duty applications until such time as the documents are officially presented to us. However, there is one critical issue that should be brought to the attention of the public as soon as possible: should these applications succeed, the consumer will be paying far more for chicken products.

How will huge price increases affect the poorer segments of our population, many of whom are reliant on basic chicken products for their protein needs? Our estimate is that increases could be as high as 40% or 50%.

This is the only reason that the local industry is making such an application: their aim is to realise more income for their products — to charge more. At this time, in a very trying and difficult economic climate, we should be looking at reducing duties on chicken products in an effort to assist hard-pressed consumers maintain a healthy diet.

How can we even justify current duties of 27% on products such as chicken offals — a basic commodity favoured by the poorer people in this country? Should such selfish applications succeed we should prepare ourselves for consumer anger — lots of it. David Wolpert CEO, Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of SA