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Importers are currently suffering from high international prices, which are exacerbated by import tariffs that milling chamber Chief Executive Jannie de Villiers told Reuters should have been abandoned weeks ago.
Legislation dictates that if international wheat and maize prices are too high, tariffs are reduced to put the cost of imported grains in line with the local market.
The international maize price met the South African government's criteria for a zero tariff on October 2, but the milling chamber's call the next day for a duty cut has remained with the government's Board of Tariffs and Trade (BTT) since then.
"At the moment we have had no news. They just say it is in the process," De Villiers said. "I don't understand how it can take so long."
South African maize prices have soared this year on demand from food-starved neighbouring countries, where bad weather and mismanagement have ruined crops.
The government said on Thursday it would supply cheaper maize meal, boost welfare grants and consider reviving a strategic food reserve in an effort to shield the nation's poor from the rocketing food prices.
Last Friday the board cut the tariff to R43.60 from R137.40, after waiting nearly two weeks from when international prices met the conditions for the cut.
Millers and importers have complained bitterly about the bureaucracy that has snarled the process.
Tariff cuts go through a complicated process, with a notification passing from BTT to the South African Revenue Services, which prepares a notice for the Government Gazette.
The notice then goes to the Department of Finance for a signature before it is published in the gazette, and only then does it come into effect.
International prices are measured in South Africa on a three-week moving average, and if they exceed a base price for 21 days tariffs are reduced.
The BTT has already cut the imported wheat tariff to zero. The regional food crisis has led South African farmers to plant less wheat and more maize, and the country will increase imports of wheat, whose price has also jumped as bad weather batters crops in North America and Australia.
Food prices in South Africa soared by 18% in the year to August, prompting a surge in inflation.
