TTMA PRESIDENT

President of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturer’s Association (TTMA), Paul Quesnel, said businessmen are not to be blamed for the exorbitant prices consumers are now being forced to pay for goods.

As a matter of fact, he said, most of the blame should fall on the consumers themselves.

“The unemployment rate is down to eight percent so this means there are more consumers willing to spend money and this results in a lot of products not locally produced to be consumed,” he said.

Because of the high rate of international product consumption in Trinidad, local manufacturers and farmers are not being supported and thus they are forced to raise their food prices, he said.

In addition to this, Quesnel said there is generally a shortage of food on the international market because of mass buying by China.

“The direct effect of this is that there would be a sharp increase in the world market price of produce,” he explained.

Another major contributor to the increase in food prices, he said, is the rising cost of oil. He pointed out that high oil prices would mean an increase in transportation cost, both for inland freight and shipping.

Quesnel also laid blame on the high shipping prices importers are being faced with as a result of the continuous congestion on the nation’s ports. He charged that if the ports were efficiently run, there would be a very small or no congestion surcharge for businessmen.

Importers, he said, are also required to pay a demurrage charge of over US$100 per day for every day the return of a container is overdue.

Importers, he explained, are given ten days in which to return the container to the shipping company. The ten days are calculated from the time the container is taken off the ship in TT, including Saturdays and Sundays, he emphasised.

“ If all these charges could be minimised then businessmen would not have to charge exorbitant prices for food,” Quesnel said. President of the San Juan Business Association, Gail Merhair, is of a similar view.

“There are problems on the port that need to be cleared up if we are to see a change in food prices,” she said.

She said although the port congestion surcharge has been decreased, there are additional charges like haulage and delay charges that businessmen still have to pay, because of the inefficiencies on the port.

Another factor that lends itself to the increased food costs, she said, is the shortage of employable persons in the agricultural sector. “Because of the construction boom and because of projects like CEPEP and URP, people have to pay more than the minimum wage in order to ensure that some of the individuals stay in some of these organisations,” she said.

She stressed that commercial rent has also gone up because of the cost of construction, so too has the cost of security which forms part of the operational costs of a business.

“Operating costs to manufacture has escalated and that has contributed significantly to the rise in the unit price of goods being sold. Once the operational cost increases, then directly goods and services will increase,” she said.

It is her view that these prices could be curbed if the Government revisits some its fiscal policies in terms of inflation.

“Try to keep costs down and slow down a bit on the number projects that take up a lot of money in order accelerate the economy and to ensure that it does not overheat,” she said.