Shelf prices for food and basic necessities are higher than ever - but is it price gouging by greedy merchants, or just the inevitable spin off of global inflation.
Tonight, G.O.B. and the Chinese community which controls Belize's retail sector - may be one step closer to finding out.
That's after a meeting between Chinese retailers and ministers of government where it was made clear to the retailers that price gouging will be penalized.
But the retailers also hit back explaining that price gouging happens not from the bottom up, but from top to bottom, and advised them to look more closely at the practices of wholesalers and importers.
The meeting was held at the Charter House Building in Belize City and while it was closed-door, the media was waiting outside. Here's what both sides told us about what seemed like a positive accord reached and some of the realities contributing to the ever-rising price of goods that Belizeans are struggling to afford:
Jose Mai, Minister Of Agriculture
"That amendment is to deal with the allegations of roughing, price gouging. The supplies control act now, the offices are allowed now to issue tickets. We have been in consultation with the store owners for some time and we have done rounds on the media explaining what we will do. Today we had the opportunity to meet with our partners in the community which is the Chinese community which essentially are involved in the business of owning shops and so on. Many of them here are wholesalers and retailers but as partners in this we explained to them what the regulations are now and how they can help us to. Control the gouging."
"It was a very good meeting, very cordial and I think we, I think it is a step in the right direction. I think they all agree that we are in this together and that we must partner to try to give the opportunity to Belizeans to have a decent livelihood. I don't think. That it's fair for anyone to be gouging. We know that inflation is a reality but thee may be. People who are taking that as an advantage and raising prices unnecessarily and making lives for Belizeans even harder. So, it was a good meeting and I think that we have another meeting. These especially were retailers, some do wholesale but they are people who do importing and many of them, as was explained to us today, they base thier price based on what they receive the goods at. And so you have to work it backpay and say hold on but why is the wholesaler selling it to them at a higher price and then whosoever would say but why is the import bringing it in at that high price. So, this first meeting was with the retailer essentially and now we meet with the wholesalers in the next coming weeks and with the importers. We are explaining to them what the law is and how we can work together."
But are these retailers just importing inflation along with their goods? G.O.B says there is a way to find out
Lennox Nicholson, Controller Of Supplies
"That is one of the key discussion points that we had with the community because everybody recognizes the impact that inflation is having, as an importing country a good amount of that is actually imported inflation. What we need to do as the enforcement agency is to be able to distinguish, where imported inflation ends and gouging starts, and you would have noticed that certain goods were taken into the room and we explained some of our findings from inspections where we can show where that imported inflation aspect ended and where the gouging started. And, the minister mentioned about our collaboration with the community because that is key because one of the things we need to be able to do is tom app throughout the entire distribution chain and identify exactly where the problem point may be and that is why the Minister made mention of the receipts and the invoices. So that we are able to identify whether there is a problem at the importer end, the wholesaler end, or the retailer end because we want to make sure that when we make our reinforcement intervention it is effective and it will only be effective if we are properly targeting the element that has the problem. So, the discussion was to set up discussions, collaboration, information sharing and explain to the community what their obligations and responsibilities are under the current legislation and under r the amendment that has been passed."
President of the Chinese community Johnson Ou says that based on his observations gouging isn't happening at least not at the retail level. Still, he did agree that if anyone is gouging then they should be penalized. Here are his observations of today's meeting.
Johnson Ou, President, Belize Chinese Association
"We thank the government for giving us such an opportunity to explain where the prime gouging starts from, and this meeting is very productive. It's long but it is too short for us to solve all the problems that we have."
"This is a very good opportunity that we can express ourselves, the difficulties that we have had in previous times and like I said again, we are just the secondary wholesaler, some of us, majority just the retailer. So this, we need to go to. The very top, we need to go to the very top."
"The most important point is that we are just the retailers. We are not the importer or not even the primary wholesaler. The most in my community is the secondary wholesaler and then the majority are retailers. So, our prices are affected a lot, very much by the importers."
But what does Ou and the wider Chinese community think of the governments new ticketing system. This afternoon he told us that it's opens hem up to discrimination and will prove tricky to say the least.
Johnson Ou, President, Belize Chinese Association
"That ticketing to me is very hard to justify. To remove it is hard, for any officer to issue a ticket to any premises is very easy but is it too…If the officer is doing the right thing, does he or she do the necessity to find out if that premises is violating? To really qualify for that ticket? So that is very tough and could cause a lot of arguments."
"It's the market, the market controls the prices and the competitions, it does a lot, does a lot and keeps the prices down, so from theme I heard gouging, I don't believe the gouging is happening because the market does a lot and has done a lot so this won't be existing. If any premises wants to keep thier business going and they cannot just put any price they want, that is ridiculous."
"I can say that is a possibility and if anyone is doing that then they should get penalized."
Minister Mai also gave his opinion that the real solution to battle inflation is to encourage the public to be self-sufficient and produce their own food.
