Tajamuka-Sesijikile targets shops

SOCIAL movement, Tajamuka/Sesijikile, has threatened to mobilise consumers to boycott all retail outlets that have not yet slashed prices of basic commodities in response to government's scrapping of the 15% value added tax (VAT) imposed early this month.

This came as Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo taunted Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa over the stand-off saying retailers would only heed the call to slash prices if the Treasury head gazettes another statutory instrument to repeal the earlier one.

Said Moyo in a tweet yesterday: "It's a no brainer, that a statutory instrument can only be amended or repealed through a statutory instrument and not a Press statement!"

Tajamuka/Sesijikile spokesperson, Promise Mkwananzi, said the social movement on Saturday gave retailers a 48-hour ultimatum to slash prices or face a crippling consumers boycott.

Statutory instrument 20 (SI20), which imposed the 15% VAT increase, became effective on February 1, resulting in supermarkets and suppliers increasing prices by as much as 50%.

Some of the products caught up in the price adjustment maze include mealie-meal, cooking oil, sugar, meat, rice, fish and potatoes.

On Tuesday, Chinamasa suspended the tax obligation following a public outcry, but most retail outlets, including leading supermarkets, have not yet reduced their prices, a survey showed.

Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president, Denford Mutashu, claimed last week that they had ordered all retailers to return to the old prices, although a recent survey by Southern Eye established that a few retailers had complied with the directive.

"Tajamuka notes with disdain that Zimbabwe's major supermarkets have not complied with government's directive to scrap off value added tax from food stuffs. The government had initially put a tax on food stuffs but succumbed to pressure from the citizens," Mkwananzi said.

"On Monday, Tajamuka teams will be checking if the supermarkets have scrapped the VAT or not. Failure to do so will result in a national boycott of the errant supermarkets until they remove the VAT.

"Seeing the Finance ministry's dismal failure to enforce its directive, we urge citizens to exercise due diligence and assert their rights when shopping or buying things. We must care, and jealously guard our hard-earned money."

The 15%VAT increase was seen as increasing inflation, and fuelling the black market, knocking industries that had begun to show signs of recovery following a ban on a wide list of imported goods.

Mkwananzi said his pressure group will not stand idle while corporates fleece long-suffering Zimbabweans of their hard-earned money.

"We don't act against, we act for something. And of the things we want to see is a transparent, just and fair Zimbabwe. So yes, we will go for big corporates, when they act in an unjust and unfair manner. We also act in the interests of citizens and defence of the rule of law. So we will spring up when they are under threat. Obvious, the current government is the biggest culprit," he said.

Last year, Tajamuka/Sesijikile members literally camped at an upmarket hotel in Harare protesting Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko's long and costly stay since his appointment in 2014.

Mphoko eventually budged and checked out of the hotel, where he had stayed for more than a year at taxpayers' expense.