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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Supermarket owners: Price cuts came too late

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20131224

Some su­per­mar­ket own­ers around Port-of-Spain are com­plain­ing that the re­duc­tion in flour, oil and rice from the state-owned Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) should have been done ear­li­er for both su­per­mar­kets and con­sumers to ben­e­fit.Roger Ramdin, own­er of Pay­less Su­per­mar­ket, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, said the an­nounce­ment was made too late.

"This came too late. They should have done this since the be­gin­ning of De­cem­ber. No su­per­mar­ket could have bought ex­tra flour or ex­tra oil and rice," he told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.The dis­counts of a 20 per cent re­duc­tion in the prices of spe­cif­ic brands of flour, soy­abean oil and rice, pro­duced by NFM, were an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last Thurs­day at a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

Ramdin said most shop­pers would have bought those ba­sic prod­ucts ear­ly in the Christ­mas sea­son."Those are bulk items as you buy a sack of flour or oil in large quan­ti­ty but two days be­fore Christ­mas what kind of im­pact that will make? Peo­ple who got ear­ly salaries would have bought these things way be­fore. On­ly the peo­ple who got salaries very late would ben­e­fit from this," he said.

He showed the T & T Guardian a let­ter from the Con­sumer Di­vi­sion, which was dat­ed De­cem­ber 20, which he said in­formed them of­fi­cial­ly of the price re­duc­tion."It was on­ly last Fri­day a la­dy from Con­sumer Di­vi­sion came and showed us the 20 per cent price re­duc­tion and we heard the Min­is­ter of Trade spoke about it a lit­tle ear­li­er," he said.Christo­pher Low, own­er of Sing Chong Su­per­mar­ket, Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, said there would be lit­tle im­pact of this late ini­tia­tive from NFM to re­duce these items.

"Peo­ple al­ready bought their rice and flour al­ready so these goods are not sell­ing as fast as peo­ple may have im­pact­ed. I be­lieve it would have been more ef­fec­tive it was done ear­li­er in­stead of this last minute where no­body saw this com­ing," he added.He said the NFM ini­tia­tive was a good one though and all in­come lev­els would be at­tract­ed to a dis­count like this.

He added: "Twen­ty per cent re­duc­tion on any­thing is a good dis­count but it is too late. Every­body buys flour and rice and oil so it is open to all peo­ple but time-wise it is too short. There is no hope to sell more of this be­cause what­ev­er stock we have has al­ready been bought and that is what will be sold and we will be re­bat­ed for it af­ter," he said.He said if the Gov­ern­ment and NFM did that again next year he hoped it would be done much ear­li­er.

"We hope that if this is done again it will not be the day be­fore Christ­mas Eve but it will give su­per­mar­ket own­ers time to pre­pare," he added.Janelle Lue, own­er of Wang Su­per­mar­ket, Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, said the Gov­ern­ment dropped a "bomb" on su­per­mar­ket own­ers by this late an­nounce­ment.

"Many of us bought stock since the be­gin­ning of De­cem­ber but they said the re­bate would on­ly be off the last bill. I on­ly bought Ibis flour from my last or­der. The rice and oil were bought since ear­ly De­cem­ber so I have no re­bate to get off that," she said.She al­so com­plained that the Gov­ern­ment should have ex­plained its move much ear­li­er and ex­plained it bet­ter to su­per­mar­ket own­ers to stop any con­fu­sion.

"They can­not do this last minute. Cus­tomers were ask­ing if it was all brands of rice but I ex­plained it was on­ly the NFM brands. This is con­fu­sion," she said.Fran­cis Mo­hammed, a cus­tomer, was hap­py for the 20 per cent re­duc­tion but wished it was done for all of De­cem­ber."Twen­ty per cent is a good price re­duc­tion but the Gov­ern­ment can not just do this last minute. They could have done this since the be­gin­ning of the month not when peo­ple al­ready do most of their gro­cery shop­ping," he said.

Shop­per Mar­sha George told the T&T Guardian she wished the Gov­ern­ment would re­duce prices on more goods next time."It is not on­ly flour and rice peo­ple use. The Gov­ern­ment needs to drop prices on more food­stuff," she added.


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