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Precious Manomano-Herald Reporter
SPAR Supermarket at Fife Avenue Shopping centre in Harare’s Avenues area was yesterday raided by officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and an assortment of smuggled Snowflake self-raising wheat flour from South Africa was seized.
Senior agricultural economist in the Ministry, Mr Simbarashe Masanga, said businesspeople must acquire licences so that they operate legally.
He said Government cannot issue licences for the import of products like flour as it should protect local companies.
Mr Masanga said they will conduct similar raids nationwide and warned business people to abide by the correct procedures when importing goods into the country.
“Others who are smuggling products into the country should note that the law is watching. It will catch up with you and we are coming to all supermarkets, tuck shops and other shops. We are going to do the same exercise”.
He said Government cannot issue licences for the import of products like flour as it should protect local companies.
“For these products, we cannot issue permits because there are large quantities of flour in the country.
“A lot of local brands can compete easily but due to the illegal manner with which these products are being imported, that becomes difficult. So to bring sanity to the agricultural marketing space, we have to conduct these raids once in a while,” Mr Masanga said.
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