Agriculture

Gathering support for tariff implementation

Following last week’s open letter to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel, calling on him to implement the anti-dumping duties on dumped chicken imports that he postponed last year, FairPlay has reached out to nearly 50 stakeholders and organisations to gather support for that position.

Minister Patel’s office has acknowledged receipt of the letter, which was delivered to him and then published online. It has been used or reported on in a number of publications, including Food for Mzansi.

The choice that Minister Patel faces is to impose those duties, or opt for a further suspension. In the letter to the minister, FairPlay founder Francois Baird argued strongly that any further delays would be inexcusable – the decision should be to impose the duties that ought to have been in place since last year.

The responses we have received include a letter from David Wolpert, former CEO of the importers’ association AMIE, which has been lobbying for the delay.

“For me the solution is simple. Implement the anti-dumping duties because that was ITAC’s finding and the Minister’s commitment, and grant local poultry a subsidy for the huge disadvantage they have been labouring under in the forms of high feed prices and power and water disasters,” Wolpert wrote from Australia.

We will know, possibly this week, which course Minister Patel has chosen.