NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Retail Grocers Association (RGA) President Philip Beneby said yesterday that he stays optimistic that food retailers and wholesalers will come to a resolution with government very soon over their Price Control Basket expansion concerns.
Beneby confirmed that the association is ready to fulfill with government today on the problem.
“We’re still in dialogue with government. We hope to have a gathering on Tuesday and we’ll see what the final result of that meeting is. All I can say is we hope and pray that we come to some resolution soon.
“I’m optimistic that it won’t run on for much longer and we must always have more to say once now we have concluded our meetings,” Beneby said.
He acknowledged that the association has rejected the federal government’s latest amended list of things being added to the Price Control Basket.
Last week Economic Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis revealed that government had agreed to a five percent increase within the margin on perishable food items, who yesterday described the move as a “reasonable concession”.
The items on the federal government’s final amended price control list are the identical categories of things gazetted last month.
The Retail Grocers Association had argued that while the federal government had announced 38 items can be added to the Price Control Basket, it’s if truth be told 38 categories of foodstuffs, which might affect greater than 5,000 items to which inventory and price adjustments would need to be made.
The association further argued that the move can be detrimental to the local food wholesale and retail industry, and indicated that they’d not implement the value control amendments until they received a conclusive response from the federal government.
