The old saying of resignation goes: "what does that have to do with the price of rice?"...well, tonight the answer is "plenty."
Over the past few weeks, the public has expressed concerns over the increase of the price of rice at grocery stores. Today we found out that if you are paying more than 85 cents for a pound of rice, you are being over charged. Statutory instrument number 116 of 1990 has the controlled retail price of rice at 85 cents. That means that anything above that would be going against the price controls. But while you should not pay more than 85 cents for rice, surveys being conducted by relevant authorities show that rice is being sold at anywhere between 80 cents and a dollar. Retailers may want to justify the Increase of the price because of an increase in the wholesale price at the Marketing Board but we're told that they cannot legally do that.
Today, officials at the board told us that they have agreed to pay producers 5 cents more for each pound of rice. That 5 cents is then passed on in the wholesale price of 72 cents which still allows retailers to make a comfortable profit of 13 cents a pound instead of the 20 cents they used to make. But, it seems those retailers want their 20 cents and in many cases are illegally passing on that 5 cent increase. What should you do? Well, we can't tell you how to run business with your grocer but we can tell you that if someone is charging more then 85 cents a pound for rice you can report them to the supplies control unit.