Judas treatment for poultry industry

THE EDITOR: Nowhere in the Budget can I find a proposal to reduce the price of flour. Try as I might, I could not find a proposal to reduce the price of rice. The same holds true for cooking oil. However, much attention and focus are given to reducing the surcharge on imported chicken and turkey parts and like the majority of the population, I would like to know why the poultry industry of Trinidad has been singled out for destruction. People are even asking if the poultry industry had its headquarters in Laventille, whether these harsh fiscal measures would be applied. You get my drift? What makes the new poultry punishments look even worse is the fact that the Government cannot make National Flour Mills reduce the price of flour even though the Government, through one avenue or another, owns NFM. How come there was so much whining and mewling by so-called tough Government ministers when faced with flour and rice increases from the Government factory; but so much bad john action over poultry?

Isn’t this the same government that said, like Marie Antoinette, if you can’t eat flour, then eat cassava? That was their best shot when flour went up? They never had to say if you can’t eat chicken, then eat caviar, because chicken is the most popular, most eaten meat at prices the public can afford thanks in no small measure to the poultry industry which absorbs the pressure when grain prices sour, in order to put chicken in every pot. The really frightening part is that the cowards in Government who are afraid of doing something about NFM, would sit down and smilingly agree with the poultry producers to hold an economic line, and then turn round and stab them in the back at the first opportunity. Does this Government have a vendetta with agriculture? And the people who are mainly involved in agriculture? The Government must understand that this is the impression people are getting. Perhaps it is time to call in the “Principles of Fairness” committee, because the poultry industry has been given Judas treatment.

LEO HUGGINS
Port-of-Spain