Poultry Association seeks meeting with PM

THE Poultry Association of Trinidad and Tobago (PATT) is asking Government not to remove the surcharge on imported chicken, saying it will impact significantly on the country’s economy and result in the loss of over 10,000 jobs.

As a result, the Association has written to Prime Minister Patrick Manning, seeking a meeting to discuss the matter 2nd “to avert what may become a national crisis which goes beyond the objective of an affordable price of chicken to consumers.” The letter dated August 29 was copied to the Minister of Agriculture, John Rahael and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Camille Robinson-Regis. Robinson-Regis last week said because of the increased price of chicken, which was unfair to the consumer, Government would look into removing the surcharge on imported chicken, to ensure more affordable chicken on the local market.

The Association’s interim President Ezack Ali, said the Association agreed with Government that chicken prices should be more affordable, and effective Monday Sep 1,  poultry producers had started to reduce the wholesale price of live chickens to poultry depots. He said as a result it would not be in the “best interest of the country to punish all of the producers for the unfortunate actions of some.” Ali said over 600,000 heads of chicken are sold per week and only ten to 15 percent of those sales were at the “very high end of the scale, and therefore approximately 85-90 percent are now being sold at reasonable market prices.” He added that market trends for the next three months show that prices are to move lower by as much as ten percent. In the letter to Manning, Ali said the proposed removal of the 80 percent surcharge “will not only punish the producers who increased their prices, but will unfortunately affect those producers who have made good on their commitment to hold their prices.”

Ali said the removal of the surcharge will only apply to frozen chicken parts, which he said constituted “only about 20 percent of total sales of chicken products in the country.” Ali said the removal will have a direct negative impact on hundreds of independent pluck shops (depots), who only sell live chickens “and have no facilities to accommodate frozen chickens.” In addition, Ali said the move will result in “the total collapse of our local poultry industry, including the direct loss of over 10,000 jobs and capital investment base of over $1 billion.” Ali deemed Government’s proposition to remove the surcharge as “risky” and a movement “away from, rather than towards greater food security.” He said the surcharge which applied only to the chicken parts was implemented to ensure “the poultry industry was not put at additional risk, by the grave threat posed by the dumping of residual parts.” Ali said he trust that “reasonableness, fair play and good judgement will prevail.”