Suppressing our ability to choose

THE EDITOR: Is competition that bad? Come on let us think about it as consumers. We are consumers and we are spending our hard earned money. As spenders of this nation we want a product/service that satisfies our needs and wants which inevitably are insatiable. It is preposterous to have an oligopoly that basically sets the prices in the industry. The uncertainties of pricing decisions are very substantial. In this oligopoly market there is a price leader and price followers. This oligopolistic approach puts barriers to entry which are high at stakes and makes it very difficult for firms, be it local or international, to enter the industry.

Competition connote freedom of choice. Suffice it to say, it gives companies the incentive to use their initiative to innovate their existing products or services. We should have an eclectic taste for variety. For instance this whole debate about local chicken producers believing that the government’s recent lowering of importation taxes means that the bottom line is that their profit will hit an all time low. However, the local producers are looking at the spectrum from a profit point of view rather than a consumer point of view. It is really insidious that poultry producers will do anything to suppress our ability to choose. It should not be within the modus operandi that local producers should want to take away this freedom of choice.

This idiosyncratic behaviour by a local producer has stirred up a massive attack on the Gover0n-ment. A total disrespect of dirt dragging the integrity of our Prime Minister and Minister of Consumer Affairs in particular to this issue should not be tolerated ever again. It is within the Government’s constitutional right to look after its people. On that note, I must mention that this sort of controversy was an embarrassment to me, my students and my institution on the whole during the last two weeks due to our foreign partners who so happen to have been visiting us on a workshop seminar entitled “Effective Communication with Contemporary Minds.” Is this ironic or what? Perhaps we can pass on this knowledge to our dear chicken producers.

A HYATALI
Technocrat — Couva