‘Make chicken portions VAT-free to stave off hunger’

The need to make some chicken products VAT-free is more important and urgent than ever.

This is the word from nonprofit organisation FairPlay, which has reiterated its call to the government to remove the 15% VAT from the chicken portions most consumed by lowerincome households.

The call was made in the wake of a recent Sunday Times investigation into the state of child hunger in SA, which found that nearly 200 children under the age of five died from severe malnutrition in January and February.

The figures showed that KwaZulu-Natal reported 50 deaths of children under five in January and February, the Eastern Cape 32, and Gauteng and Mpumalanga 29 each.

The other provinces made up the other 88.

“Malnutrition, particularly among children, is one of the reasons FairPlay has advocated removing VAT from some chicken portions.

“Malnutrition in the first two years of life is a cause of child stunting, which affects children physically and often mentally for the rest of their lives,” FairPlay said.

Its #VATfreeChicken campaign has highlighted research by the National Development

Plan and the SA Child Gauge showing the importance of proper nutrition for a child’s first 1,000 days — from conception to two years of age.

“The Sunday Times coverage shows that the need is, if anything, more desperate now.

“It also demonstrates the urgency of measures to restrain price increases, particularly of chicken, which is the cheapest and most popular meat protein.

“Efforts by meat importers to get import tariffs scrapped are never going to work, as they would affect only a tiny portion of chicken sales while threatening thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of local jobs.

“What will work, and can be implemented easily and speedily, is for government to remove the 15% VAT from the chicken portions most consumed by lower income households.”