LETTER: The sugar cane industry should be sweeter than it is
Prolonged droughts, taxes, duty-free imports — all are bad, but the biggest challenge to the sector remains the government not offering sufficient protection
In, Too much sugar can be bad for banks (July 16), editor Lukanyo Mnyanda makes an interesting point about trust and investment. The example he uses is of an Investec analyst’s critical report on Tongaat Hulett referring to their "appalling" set of results and a decade of under-performance. While Mnyanda had a bigger point to make, the analyst’s comments gave me pause to critically reflect on my industry for a moment. Two prolonged droughts in the past decade; the introduction of a sugar tax causing lower demand for sugar; imported sugar allowed to flow into the country "duty free" for several weeks this year; and misinformation on transformation successes compound the challenges facing our local industry. The biggest challenge, however, remains the failure of the South African government to declare a dollar-based reference price and establish the level of protection required through an import tariff against the impact of low-cost imported sugar being dumped on the local market. The...
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