This after a court in Pretoria ruled in favour of an urgent application brought by Grain SA to get Government to publish the tariff.

The increase in the tariff was already triggered on 24 May and was recalculated at R1591.40 per ton. Grain SA’s Manager of grain economy and marketing, Dr Dirk Strydom, says it is unfortunate that they had to turn to the courts to ensure implementation. He says the delay has placed tremendous strain on wheat producers:

“Looking at the impact of the delay – we know that exchange rates play a very important role. Firstly what happened, producers purchased their inputs at very weak exchange levels, which meant that their inputs were very expensive.

“Also, due to the delay in the tariff, there was a lot of uncertainty in the market. This meant that wheat hardly traded at all in the market.”

Part of the reason for the delay is misconceptions that the tariff has an impact on consumers, or more specifically bread prices. Strydom says this is not the case:

“The last time we struggled to get the tariff published it took 84 days to get it published. This time around it is standing at more than 60 days to get it published.

“In the period that the tariff was not in effect, we did not see a decline in bread prices.”

OFM News