U.D.P Senator Uses Grocery Bag to Illustrate Cost of Living Increases

Orson “OJ” Elrington

U.D.P Senator, Orson Elrington, who took a bag of food items to the Senate with him, used the prices on those items to underscore the point that inflation is the order of the day. Elrington suggested that in the last year, inflation has almost doubled. During his presentation, he produced several items from a market bag and read out their average prices, suggesting that the new five-dollar minimum wage offers little comfort to people who have to purchase these goods.

Orson “OJ” Elrington, Senator, U.D.P

“I will highlight some of the most basic goods which are listed here and it reports for example sweet pepper has gone up in the last year alone by forty-eight point nine percent, coconut milk, another essential ingredient for a good rice and beans  has gone up forty two point two percent. Tomatoes have risen sixty nine point eight percent, and cabbage by seventy percent, but it is not only the basket of goods itself and what is in this basket also included in this basket of goods is because these baskets of goods represent what is the mere and bare essentials  for a family, so it also includes things like butane. When the PUP government took power in 2020, a tank of butane was ninety-five dollars and two cents now it is one hundred and twenty four dollars and thirty one cents. That represents a thirty percent increase in this most important commodity. The truth is that the cost of living continues to cripple the Belizean people.”