They say you cannot unring a bell once it has been rung. Well, they should also say you cannot bring down a price once it has been raised. A few weeks ago retailers were quick to raise the price of mealie-meal once they heard that the government was planning to remove subsidies.

What is never clear is whether the government actually went ahead and did this for a time or not. What is clear is that the government has changed tack and wants those subsidies reintroduced and the price of roller meal to go back to $50 ZWL per kg.

It seems shops never got the memo

A few days after the announcement we have done a partial survey focusing mainly on maize-meal and we can tell you that prices are still north of $100 ZWL even in big shops like OK. The lowest price that we saw was $99.99 for Red Seal Roller meal in Mahommed Mussa.

It’s not clear who is to blame all we know is that if you want to buy 10kg of mealie-meal you have to pay a $100 ZWL at the moment. We are in the midst of a drought and the invisible forces sense an opportunity for money to be made buying mealie-meal on the cheap at government prices and selling it at double the price.