Johannesburg - The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (Amie) will file an application at the High Court in Pretoria related to import duty costs, the body said on Thursday.
The action was about obtaining confidential information that might shed light on what future chicken import duty costs should be, executive committee member Georg Southey said in Johannesburg.
The application would be filed against the International Trade Administration Commission of SA (Itac), and the SA Poultry Association (Sapa).
In March the Sapa applied for an increase in import duties which Amie said could be up to 82 percent, and which it opposed.
Itac initiated investigations but did not verify some information, and reduced the period for comment from four weeks to three, Amie claimed.
Itac said it had to move fast because the industry was in distress.
Amie disputed this, saying it was mostly doing well, and blamed the local industry's business model for problems.
Imports were not the cause of the problem, it said.
The application would be filed against Sapa and the Itac's chief commissioner on June 18 to access apparently confidential information Sapa supplied to Itac.
“We believe (the information) is flawed and we want a chance to interrogate it properly,” Southey said.
The high court would determine whether the information was confidential or not.
Also, on June 11 Amie would make a presentation at the Itac headquarters in Pretoria.
The commission had monthly reviews on tariff-related matters and Amie would discuss jobs, socio-economic factors, and brining. Brining involves injecting salty water into parts of a chicken, mostly the breasts.
Amie said hollow steel rods were used to inject the brine into the chicken to make it more succulent, but claimed this process reduced the nutritional value of the protein and made customers pay for frozen water.
“We believe the local industry is selling expensive water, not cheap chicken,” Southey said. - Sapa