Tomato price increase the pips

“WHAT has that got to do with the price of tomatoes and onions?” is an ageold, clichéd, rhetorical question that, hitherto, begged no answer.

Less than 20 years ago, the Indian government was almost toppled because of a serious shortage of onions (the subsidised price of thousands of truckloads from Pakistan apparently assisted to avert a national disaster).

Here in our own country, deep, economic potholes – first in the form of the inflated fuel price, the electricity tariff, and the subsequent transport costs – have automatically resulted in the incisively upward spiraling of food prices across the board.

Now comes the pungent punch in the mouth: Ordinary tomatoes, the red life-blood of most foods, have just about trebled in price within a single week!

The average price is about R25 to R30 a kilogram at most supermarkets.

Brief inquiries from the store managers, receive the usual shrug of the shoulders and “the supplier has increased the price” or “there is a shortage”.

There are also less intelligent explanations like “the prices are determined not at store level”.

The government has to realise that the price of basic foods is not a trivial item on the political menu. It may appear to be merely a harmless “starter”.

A starter perhaps, but certainly not harmless. When any government cannot feed the hungry mouths of the majority of its people, it surely signals the main course that carries the taste of the beginning of an era that can end only in widespread looting, violence and wanton anarchy.

The onion nearly reduced the Indian government of the time to virtual tears. Is the shortage of the tomato the final acid test for our government? EBRAHIM ESSA Durban