BY BASHIR AL BASHIR
Tanzania has effected 23% salary increment for the lowest paid in the civil service. Malawi has effected 12% increment for the lowest paid in the civil service suffice to mention that minimum wage of Tanzania is higher than that of Malawi.
Ironically, there has been silence from MCP government on this, if it was a raise in cooking oil or sugar, MCP should have paraded that corruption suspect Kezzie all over Malawi with packets of sugar or bottles of cooking oil to justify a mediocre raise in prices.
I put it to you the following for a dominantly importing country as ours:
1. Make Forex available and stabilise Kwacha. The unstable kwacha and unavailability of Forex is triggering landing costs to be higher than average.
2. Zerorize cooking oil industry (reimburse VAT they pay on electricity, water and other raw materials) which shall trigger production cost to lower and shall have a great impact on the shelf price.
3. Ensure constant supply of electricity to producers. Productions run on gensets are very expensive and this shall be paid off by buyers
