By: Igihe.com Reporter
Champion Investment Corporation (CHIC) boss Tharcise Ngabonziza has said regulating sugar prices is on course and soon the initial price of sugar will be attained and stabilized across the country.
The above mentioned CHIC is a registered company comprised of 67 Rwandan successful businessmen who have recently been tasked by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to devise ways of regulating escalating sugar prices.
Ngabonziza the CHIC chairman board of directors told Igihe.com in an interview that they have taken charge of the situation by buying all the sugar direct from Kabuye Sugar Works and selling it to retailers.
“What we have done is eliminating the intermediary traders because they would still want to obtain more profits and hence speculators emerging. We are selling it directly to retailers other than wholesalers and of course the situation has not yet normalized, the price of the sugar has now gone to Frw 1,000 but in some places it is at Frw 800,” Ngabonziza said.
He added,“we have also made a list of businessmen who will act as our agents in different business centers where final consumers can simply recognize and go for their cheap sugar”.
He further explained that the imported sugar from Tanzania and Uganda has also decreased from Frw 48,000 to Frw 41,000 and it is expected to decrease more.
Recently the government decided to waive 100% taxes on imported sugar from outside the East African Community bloc in a bid to reduce the escalating sugar prices.
Rwanda has also written to the member states requesting to waive taxes on imported sugar from outside the bloc and the decision is yet to be reached.
According to Francios Kanimba the Minister of Trade and Industry who called for a press briefing recently, Rwanda’s decision a head of member states joint decision aimed at getting immediate solution due to emergency situation that prevailed.
The escalated prices were due to the scarcity of sugar in the country which made wholesalers dictate their own prices.
Sugar from outside the region attracts Customs duty of 25 per cent and a VAT of 18 per cent. Sugar scarcity that caused its inflation has become a global issue, noting that several factors like floods in the world’s sugar production countries aggravating the problem.
Several factors have also affected world’s sugar production countries like Brazil, India and political instability in Egypt which resulted in low production of sugar with available huge demand in the new markets like South Sudan and DR Congo.
Sugar crisis is expected to prolong than the predicted period due to drought in East Africa Community bloc.
Rwanda is facing a shortage of around 30,000 tons of sugar with current consumption standing at an annual 40,000 tones which has been covered by imported sugar from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Malawi.
Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya together consume more than 1.5 million tons of sugar per annum.
Globally, consumption is forecast to grow at the rate of 2.19 per cent to 165 million tons of raw sugar.
However, world sugar production has been revised downwards in the recent past (2008/2009) to 149.3 million tons raw value.
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