B.C.C.I. Not Happy With Roll Out of New Price Control List

And while consumers stand to benefit from the amendments to the Supplies Control Act, wholesalers and retailers believe they stand to lose. On Monday, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Belize Chinese Association met to discuss the new regulations. Marcello Blake, the President of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says the chamber’s membership is yet to be informed of the mechanisms that will be employed in enforcing the regulations. He says the private sector organization has made multiple attempts to meet with the Supplies Control Unit.

Marcello Blake

Marcello Blake, President, Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry

“We are on the same page as it relates to the S.I. was signed on the tenth of August and there was very, no mention of it until a comment was made by minister Mai to bring it to our attention. In that we were concerned that in fact the necessary controls and monitoring mechanisms has not been disclosed to any of the two memberships to be able to then be able to query and get clarity on the way these mechanisms would be working and particularly referring to S.I eighty-seven and eighty-eight of 2023. We did have one meeting with the supplies controller as well as the CEO from the Ministry of Human Development and it is subsequent to that meeting we released the paper and wrote to the prime Minister. Since then we haven’t had any conversation, not for the lack of trying. I can tell you the chief policy analyst has been trying to reach out to the controller of supplies without much success to getting them into a conversation or to provide an update on where we were in the conversation.”