PM Lists Ways G.O.B. is Dealing with Price Gouging

Prime Minister John Briceño

We begin our newscast tonight with the ever-pertinent issue of inflation. Massive increases in the cost of goods and services can potentially deflate the economy and consumers across the country are desperately looking for much needed reprieve. Today, the media had a chance to speak with Prime Minister John Briceño on the topic once again. He spoke of a number of things that the government is doing to deal with merchants who have been guilty of taking up the prices of their products. And now there’s a list of those businesses with the highest prices and the lowest prices for their products, as the PM explained.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“There is a problem and the people at Supplies Control have pointed out to us in cabinet, it says, at the wholesale level, there’s, there’s a fierce competition amongst them and they’re cutting down prices. But when it goes to the retailers, the retailers do not bring down the prices, they continue to increase the prices. And they do that because it’s a small group of people that control. The retail business in Belize on what have we done when we have changed a lot to be able to issue tickets. We have been issuing tickets to many of them. We have now even posting their names on social media and even on the news so that people can see who are the people we’re seeing are taking advantage of our citizens. And lastly, just in cabinet, we said the Statistical Institute of Belize combines a lot of data as to prices in different stores. So we are asking, not SIB, to be able to compile the data to say, to, to be able to say in, in Orange Walk, these are the stores that have the lowest prices. These are the stores that have the highest prices, and do the same thing in Belize City and all over the country so that then people can know where to go to be able to buy the, the lowest prices.”