Merchants Who Price Gouge Will Be Ticketed
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia
The efforts to deter price gouging in Belize seem to have been less than effective so far, with businesses across the board racking up the prices of their goods and merchandise. In order to put a dent in what the merchants have been successful at doing, this week the Cabinet heard from the Controller of Supplies for the Supplies Control Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise, Lennox Nicholson on new measures that will follow. And at the end of a review, Nicholson told News Five today that merchants who are found to be price gouging will be ticketed. First, Minister of Human Development speaks on the Cabinet decision to support this move.
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development
“Our Supplies Control Director, Mr. Lennox Nicholson and his people have had to begin the process of review and policing. Now we had to pass statutory instrument. We had to roll out the information to all the retailers and the wholesalers, and now we have added another six persons on the staff of the Supplies Control Unit in order to police. Now, we are hoping that we don’t have to stand up over people with a big heavy stick. But, it will take policing. We’re not running from that situation. It will take policing, but government is serious about trying to hold down the cost of living on basic food items, things like cornflakes, tuna, you know where you where – even the chicken sausage, the chicken sausage should not be sold at three and four and five. It should be $1.50, maybe up to $2.25, you know? So it will take work on our part, but I do want to send the message to the public that we care and that we will continue to do.”
Lennox Nicholson
Lennox Nicholson, Controller of Supplies Unit, Ministry of Agriculture
“Definitely through the rest of August, you will see increased presence in the market and we will be keeping you up to date on both our findings, as well as what – the amount of tickets that we are issued issuing from time to time based on location. The thing about it is that our approach can necessarily be to when we go into an establishment, we let the invoices and we let the prices that we see on the shelves basically determine what we do. When it comes to violations, it’s not only a matter of overpricing per se, it’s another matter of failure to put a price on the product, right. Then there’s the excessive pricing that is not a matter. And then there’s the matter of refusing to provide invoices, which would allow us to determine if you’re actually quote unquote gouging. So the regulations as presented, give us the regulatory tools to deal with all of those things.”
