If you missed the memo then here it is. Yesterday the government decided to hike the price of subsidised mealie-meal from $50 RTGS to $70 RTGS in order to “correct market distortions.” This send Zimbabwe’s sensationalist blogs and news outlets into a frenzy as they typed crazy click-bait headlines.

We refrained and instead are bringing you this sober article. The government’s price hike means nothing and will probably not help or change anything at all as things stand. Why?

The truth is that even if subsidised mealie-meal was available on the market, this new price would still be much much cheaper than black market mealie-meal which is selling for $180 RTGS at the moment.

As things stand subsidised mealie-meal is in short supply. That’s being generous, unless you are a supermarket worker or know one who is willing to share the loot, you are most unlikely to get subsidised mealie-meal even at these new prices.

The price hike is therefore of no effect to the ordinary citizen who still has to pawn up more than double this to get mealie-meal. The government, therefore, needs to work on supply and we sincerely hope this is them taking concrete steps towards improving supply.