NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The federal government has agreed to a five percent increase within the margin on perishable food items, in keeping with Economic Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis, who yesterday described the move as a “reasonable concession”.
“We published the order,” said Halkitis, referencing the Retail Grocers Association and their concerns over the Price Control Basket expansion.
“We got some communication from them. One in all their principal concerns is with the ability to have a bit little bit of cushion for perishables; meats and fruit and veggies. Their issue was there may be a possible for loss and an experience of loss with perishables so that they wanted a slight increase within the margin for perishables which we agreed to do, – five percent- they usually wanted a slight increase for family islands to cover transportation which we agreed to do.”
He added: “We must always be gazetting those new regulations, a five percent increase for perishes which I assumed was reasonable. We predict that’s an affordable concession. That they had another issues but that’s what we felt we could do at those times and we fully expect them to comply with the regulations.”
The Retail Grocers Association had argued that while the federal government had announced 38 items could 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 must be made. The association argued that the move could be detrimental to the local food wholesale and retail industry and indicated earlier this week that they might not implement the worth control amendments until they received a conclusive response from the federal government.
