Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's hol­i­day gift of a 20 per cent sub­sidy on sta­ple goods has won her gov­ern­ment top marks ac­cord­ing to the lat­est North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (Nac­ta) poll.Based on re­spons­es from 602 in­ter­vie­wees, the poll found that 94 per cent ful­ly en­dorsed the Gov­ern­ment's (Na­tion­al Flour Mill) 20 per cent re­bate on oil, flour, and rice for the Christ­mas.

The Gov­ern­ment's dis­count pol­i­cy found sup­port among peo­ple of all back­grounds and par­ty. How­ev­er, the poll showed that the ma­jor­i­ty of re­spon­dents want­ed the sub­sidy ex­tend­ed for a longer pe­ri­od. The peo­ple were very thank­ful to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj. Con­sumers said they bought ex­tra sup­plies for the sea­son and the New Year as a re­sult of the dis­count­ed prices, adding that such in­cen­tives should be giv­en dur­ing the year.

They said this showed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­doubt­ed­ly cared for the poor.The sur­vey be­gan since De­cem­ber 22 and 602 peo­ple were in­ter­viewed at ran­dom.Many re­spon­dents said they were hurt by in­fla­tion over the years and that the 20 per cent dis­count had giv­en them re­lief from high prices for the hol­i­days.

How­ev­er, some re­spon­dents felt that the PM's gift was late and that they did not have spare re­sources to ac­quire more of the sta­ple goods be­cause they had al­ready done their shop­ping for the sea­son.Al­so, some busi­ness­men wished they could have had more time to plan and im­ple­ment the pol­i­cy di­rec­tive. Short­ages at some su­per­mar­kets were not­ed with own­ers say­ing the re­sponse was so over­whelm­ing that they ran out of stocks.

Rad­hi­ca Sookraj