WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-05-08 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Deon de Lange
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has landed in hot water for suggesting poor people might spend government-funded food vouchers on booze.
Independent Democrats (ID) leader Patricia de Lille on Wednesday tabled a member’s statement in the National Assembly in which she called on the government, in light of rising food prices, to use the R98-million fine recently imposed on Tiger Brands for bread price fixing to fund food vouchers for the poor.
“It does not make sense that those who suffer the most as a result of price fixing are not compensated for the money that was taken from them,” she said
Manuel said in reply there was no way to ensure that “vouchers will be distributed and used for food only, and not to buy alcohol or other things”.
He also ridiculed suggestions for price controls as “cheap talk”.
“And so when people say ‘price controls’ I say, sure. But will each of us go into our constituency and see that no spaza shop will overcharge, even by one cent? If we don’t have those kinds of measures, I say talk is cheap,” the finance minister said.
De Lille later issued a statement criticising Manuel “for suggesting that the poor are rich enough to squander food vouchers on alcohol”, adding that such a suggestion was “an insult to the intelligence of our people”.
On the issue of price controls, De Lille pointed out that Manuel’s “cheap talk” actually came from his own government, leading the ID to speculate on a “communication breakdown at cabinet level”.
“It has become evident over the past few days that ministers in President Thabo Mbeki’s government do not agree on the way forward on rising food prices.”
Writing on the ANC’s website this week, Manuel cautioned against price controls and other interventions, saying food subsidies can have “unintended consequences that may not benefit the poor”.
In contrast, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told journalists at a government media briefing on Monday that intervention would have to be considered if suppliers did not respond to appeals to their “conscience” for moderate prices.
At the same briefing, Social Development Director-General Vusi Madonsela told journalists that the government “appreciates the urgency of the matter and the impact spiralling food prices have on the poor”.
He confirmed government was looking at a number of options, including food subsidies, vouchers and price controls.
But yesterday Manuel played down the urgency of the food price situation, pointing out that South Africa “is not even among the 50 worst affected countries”, a statement that De Lille branded as “ridiculous”.
“Must we wait behind Manuel’s budgetary conservatism to slide onto the list of 50 worst affected countries before the minister wakes up?” she asked.
The Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana earlier this month promised “drastic” and “far-reaching” measures to address rising food prices.
Speaking in the House yesterday, she provided precious little detail, save for a vague promise to increase maize and wheat production. She agreed with Manuel that only an increase in food production would alleviate prices.
“Increased food production is the best strategy to stabilise the prices that are escalating. In that regard, we have a strategy that will assist us to look at mechanisation and going into those fallow lands, especially in our rural areas, to cultivate them and make them productive,” she said.
Xingwana also committed her department to “rehabilitating some of the irrigation schemes that were built (in the provinces) some time ago” and to build new irrigation schemes to increase the amount of arable land under irrigation.
In another development bread manufacturers Pioneer Foods and Foodcorp have been referred to the Competitions Tribunal for their alleged role in a bread price fixing cartel, the Competition Commission said yesterday. The two companies could be fined 10 percent of their annual turnover for the 2006/2007 financial year.
This was after an investigation into certain firms, including Pioneer Foods and Foodcorp, suspected of fixing the price of bread in contravention of Chapter two of the Competition Act, the commission said in a statement.
“Despite the admissions of their co-cartel members and information about their senior employees participating in meetings where prices of bread were fixed and markets allocated being presented to them, Pioneer and Foodcorp have denied any wrongdoing,” the commission said.