Govt doesn't know hunger

VAT: 'HIKE WILL HIT POOREST OF THE POOR HARDEST'

- Ina Opperman

The decision to announce in the budget that value-added tax (VAT) will be increased by 2% was clearly not made by someone who knows what it is to be hungry as the VAT concessions, such as zero-rating meat, will not put more food on the plates of poor and low-income consumers.

Mervyn Abrahams, programme coordinator at the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, said there was no way the 2% increase in VAT or the concessions would protect SA's most vulnerable citizens.

Last year, 25 million people in South Africa lived under the poverty line.

The group compiles a monthly household food basket working with women from low-income communities who track the prices of 44 basic food items for the Household Affordability Index at 47 supermarkets and 32 butcheries where they shop.