RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have sig­nalled a stronger push to curb su­per­mar­ket price goug­ing, amid mount­ing pub­lic frus­tra­tion that of­fi­cial in­fla­tion fig­ures do not match what con­sumers face at the check­out counter.

The as­sur­ance came yes­ter­day dur­ing a sit­ting of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Fi­nance and Le­gal Af­fairs, which ex­am­ined food se­cu­ri­ty, nu­tri­tion pol­i­cy and con­sumer pro­tec­tion.

Can­dice Lack­hans­ingh, di­rec­tor of Strat­e­gy, Busi­ness Fa­cil­i­ta­tion and Pro­gramme Man­age­ment in the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, dis­closed that the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion (CAD) con­ducts month­ly su­per­mar­ket price mon­i­tor­ing but is legal­ly un­able to pe­nalise re­tail­ers sus­pect­ed of over­pric­ing.

“We can pub­lish prices and ad­vise con­sumers to shop around, but the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion does not give us en­force­ment pow­er,” she said, adding that draft amend­ments are be­ing pre­pared to “pro­vide more teeth.”

Com­mit­tee mem­ber and for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Dr Vish­nu Dhan­paul asked why of­fi­cial fig­ures do not align with shop­pers’ ex­pe­ri­ences.

“To the or­di­nary Trinida­di­an on the su­per­mar­ket floor, this has not been trans­lat­ed on­to the shelves,” he said. “The in­fla­tion rate could nev­er be sin­gle-dig­it based on what they are see­ing.”

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Abi­gail By­noe said the min­istry has be­gun re­view­ing the CSO’s bas­ket of goods to en­sure it re­flects chang­ing con­sump­tion and nu­tri­tion­al pat­terns. How­ev­er, while the min­istry can in­flu­ence prices through tar­iffs and trade pol­i­cy, she said it can­not set or en­force su­per­mar­ket prices.

Chair­man Dr Mar­lene Attz urged a more co­or­di­nat­ed “whole-of-gov­ern­ment” ap­proach to iden­ti­fy­ing es­sen­tial food items, warn­ing that cost alone should not dic­tate food-re­lat­ed pol­i­cy.

The is­sue of whether tar­iff re­duc­tions trans­late in­to low­er re­tail prices was raised by MP Bri­an Man­ning. Dr Attz then ques­tioned whether new leg­is­la­tion should pe­nalise price goug­ing and whether any in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­sult in penal­ties.

Di­rec­tor of Food Fa­cil­i­ta­tion Neville Alexan­der replied, “Short an­swer: it should. Does it? It de­pends.”

He said while the min­istry tracks prices be­fore and af­ter tar­iff changes, it can on­ly “in­form the pub­lic” when sav­ings are not passed on.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Bion­di Bachew re­ject­ed claims of price goug­ing, in­sist­ing re­duced Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iffs are re­flect­ed on shelves.

“The Min­istry of Trade’s Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion col­lects price da­ta month­ly across 40 stores and pub­lish­es it on their web­site and in the news­pa­pers,” Bachew said.

“So the pub­lic can see for them­selves. If those fig­ures are used to cal­cu­late in­fla­tion, then the num­bers are re­flec­tive of what’s on the shelf.”

Bachew added that su­per­mar­ket mem­bers have al­so re­moved VAT where ap­plic­a­ble.

“That re­moval is re­flect­ed in the prices cus­tomers see in store,” he said.