{"id":3004,"date":"2022-02-23T11:49:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T11:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped"},"modified":"2022-02-23T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:57:09","slug":"retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped","title":{"rendered":"Retailers want import restriction Act \u2018scrapped\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. <\/strong><\/span>Local retailers have appealed to government to review an Act which imposed restrictions on horticultural imports in 2019.<\/p>\n

In 2019 government invoked the Control of Goods, Prices and Other Charges Act to impose restrictions on imports of \u201cbutternuts, cocktail tomatoes, tomatoes, onions, green mealies and chilies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choppies Chief Executive Officer Ramachandran Ottapathu said the piece of legislation has affected the supply of horticultural produce in his retail outlets.<\/p>\n

Ottapathu indicated that the ongoing shortage of vegetable produce has left their shelves empty, saying that should the situation fail to normalize this could spell doom to their business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a piece of legislation in place which hinders us from importing vegetables and you will understand that before this Act was put in place, we used to import and we never ran out of stock,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this juncture there is nothing we can do, we only have to rely on local produce even though it is clear that due to this season we will not be able to have stock,\u201d said Ottapatu.<\/p>\n

He further said they have tried to caution against the legislation but their efforts fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only hope that government will realize how this badly affects business and reconsider its stance because this situation cannot be allowed to go on for this long,\u201d added Ottapathu.<\/p>\n

For his part, Head of retail for Sefalana Sunil Urath stated that they remain hopeful that government will open up the borders, saying that they recently lobbied government to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have met with the Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security Karabo Gare about this matter and he promised to look into this issue because it has affected business,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment knows about the potato situation for instance and it has become difficult since January this year to have potatoes in store,\u201d said Urath.<\/p>\n

He stated that as a result of vegetable shortage in the country, informal traders and restaurants are struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have previously engaged farmers and they were honest enough to tell us that some produce such as potatoes will only be available from March or April and this means that we cannot afford to wait any longer,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at least expecting government to open up the borders for a month so that retailers can stock up and supply the affected businesses,\u201d added Urath.<\/p>\n

Urath also said they continue to engage government to ensure that there is an uninterrupted supply of horticultural produce adding that they are hopeful that a permanent solution will be identified.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment already knows our position in relation to the supply of horticultural produce and we are hoping that as time goes all stakeholders will engage and put the issue to bed,\u201d stated Urath.<\/p>\n

Last year, statistics Botswana indicated that the country\u2019s food import bill rose to P823.8 million in May something which tempted government to further tighten import restrictions.<\/p>\n

The data also showed that this represents an increase of 11 percent compared to the P752 million spent on food in the period of January 2021.<\/p>\n

Chairperson of the Botswana Horticulture Council Boikaego Phole has previously stated that farmers had intensified efforts to ensure uninterrupted supply.<\/p>\n

He said one of the challenges was that a lot of money was lost through importation of horticulture produce which retailers sourced from South Africa.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Botswana<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. Local retailers have appealed to government to review an Act which imposed restrictions on horticultural imports in 2019. In 2019 government invoked the Control of Goods, Prices and Other Charges Act to impose restrictions on imports of \u201cbutternuts, cocktail tomatoes, tomatoes, onions, green mealies and chilies.\u201d Choppies Chief Executive Officer Ramachandran Ottapathu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8,12,16],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-3004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"\nRetailers want import restriction Act \u2018scrapped\u2019 - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Local retailers have appealed to government to review an Act which imposed restrictions on horticultural imports in 2019 ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retailers want import restriction Act \u2018scrapped\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Local retailers have appealed to government to review an Act which imposed restrictions on horticultural imports in 2019 ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-23T11:49:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-23T14:57:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/02\/img-62164b3020471.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"445\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Retailers want import restriction Act \u2018scrapped\u2019\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-23T11:49:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-23T14:57:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\"},\"wordCount\":567,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/02\/img-62164b3020471.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/retailers-want-import-restriction-act-scrapped\",\"name\":\"Retailers want import restriction Act \u2018scrapped\u2019 - 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