By NAMO PHIRI
REMOVAL of Value Added Tax (VAT) and suspension of import duties on edible oil will stabilise prices for cooking oil, Misozi Kadewele, the proprietor of Missoil Limited, a cooking oil production company in Mambwe, has said.
Ms Kadewele commended the move by Government saying that local companies were paying a lot of money on crude oil through VAT and import duty.
“Last year at the beginning of the season we were buying sunflower at K4 per kilogramme and this year we were buying at K6 and with VAT and import duty on crude oil you find the price becomes higher, so with VAT removed it means that the prices will be lower,” she said in an interview.
Ms. Kadewele also expressed happiness that Government did not just ask local companies to reduce oil prices without suspending import duty.
“What the government has done is a good thing because they have balanced, it would have been bad if they had just asked us to reduce the price of cooking oil without removing import duty and VAT but now we are all not affected, we are all on the safe side because both the producers and the consumers will benefit,” she said
Government recently allowed the importation of 9, 000 metric tonnes of crude edible oil with a suspension of all import duties and value added tax on imported crude oil which is the main raw material in the manufacturing of local cooking oil.
