Price Gouging is “Unfair” To Consumers; Ticketing System Coming for Shops Breaking the Law

Jose Abelardo Mai

Minister Mai also said that any establishment that is price gouging is compounding the inflation already being felt and treating Belizean consumers unfairly. He is taking a proposal to Cabinet to go after these merchants. In the meantime, he says any shop that does not have prices of controlled goods listed on the wall is already breaking the law.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security

“At this moment, looking at the inflation, it is unfair that store owners and wholesalers implement a gouging mechanism. It is unfair to the people of this country. To anybody, across the world. So we have proposed to Cabinet in a cabinet paper that we must make amendments to the supplies control act, to implement and to ensure that gouging does not take place. The first the we are going to do is to institute a ticketing system similarly to what we did with COVID,  and you know you can break the law easily, you walk into a store and there is not a listed, you walk into a shop and you see the price listed, that is a price control. Good. And it must be written on a little blackboard or the wall of a store. If you don’t have that, you are already breaking the law.”