News / National
Big supermarkets castigated for overpricing
04 Jul 2019 at 20:33hrs | Views
Industry and Commerce Minister Honourable Mangaliso Ndlovu has castigated big supermarkets for overpricing their products and exposed a forex syndicate of downtown business owners and illegal foreign currency dealers.
Minister Ndlovu who descended on the streets of Harare to conduct a price check identified outrageously priced products in one of the big supermarkets with significant variations that are largely unexplained and blamed this on unnecessary speculation.
The minister proceeded to downtown in Harare where contrastingly shop owners were revising their prices following the gazetting of statutory instrument 142 of 2019 by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which brought to an end the multi-currency regime in place of a mono-currency system.
"Prices are actually going down here since the scrapping of the multi-currency system. We are witnessing a general shift in the pricing behaviour," said one of the shop owners.
Though prices are generally low in downtown, businesses are only accepting cash for payments.
Minister Ndlovu appealed to government to open more bureau de change facilities as banks remain only for the elite.
"I have realised that banks are not accepting walk-in customers who want to change money and this is what is driving the parallel market as people are resorting to it not by choice but by necessity," he said.
The tour by the Industry and Commerce Minister helped to establish a syndicate of cash hoarders who only accept cash for payments and employ runners who either sell the hard currency in the streets or deal in forex.
Minister Ndlovu who descended on the streets of Harare to conduct a price check identified outrageously priced products in one of the big supermarkets with significant variations that are largely unexplained and blamed this on unnecessary speculation.
The minister proceeded to downtown in Harare where contrastingly shop owners were revising their prices following the gazetting of statutory instrument 142 of 2019 by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which brought to an end the multi-currency regime in place of a mono-currency system.
"Prices are actually going down here since the scrapping of the multi-currency system. We are witnessing a general shift in the pricing behaviour," said one of the shop owners.
Though prices are generally low in downtown, businesses are only accepting cash for payments.
Minister Ndlovu appealed to government to open more bureau de change facilities as banks remain only for the elite.
"I have realised that banks are not accepting walk-in customers who want to change money and this is what is driving the parallel market as people are resorting to it not by choice but by necessity," he said.
The tour by the Industry and Commerce Minister helped to establish a syndicate of cash hoarders who only accept cash for payments and employ runners who either sell the hard currency in the streets or deal in forex.
Source - zbc
