And another issue brought up at today's press conference was that of inflation. Prices of basic necessities have skyrocketed over the past year, and even with a higher minimum wage, it's hard for working Belizeans to keep up, especially when more than half of them are living in poverty.
And it was a year ago when Agriculture Minister Jose Mai said they would be doing more to prevent price gouging. He had explained that their officers would go into stores and ticket any shopkeepers who didn't have prices on certain goods labelled, and who didn't issue receipts. They would also get their stores closed down until they paid the ticket.
PSU President Dean Flowers says they're still waiting on that to happen, and they don't feel like the government is taking this issue seriously.
Dean Flowers, President, PSU
"Almost a year later absolutely nothing from the ministry of agriculture in the form of this amended supplies control act from the honourable minister or the AG's ministry. It is time for the lip service to stop where inflation and price gouging and more specifically price gouging is concerned and that the government introduce at its next sitting an amended to that act to address this dire situation. The joint unions and more specifically the Public Service Union recognizing that the price control unit in the ministry is immensely under-staffed. Last year we wrote to the minister of agriculture and the prime minister informing them that many public officers were willing to help in this endeavour to increase the man power in the unit. I'm pretty quiet sure on many occasions you've heard the prime minister and the minister say that the unit is under-staffed, so in essence, public officers stepped forward and said they wanted to empower that unit. In this regard, public officers could be appointed as special price control inspectors to implement the proposed law at no cost to the government, as public officers would do so at their own leisure when shopping at these stores when they themselves have to visit to make purchases."
"Sadly, to date there has been no response from neither the minister of agriculture or the prime minister. We, the joint unions therefore call on this government and a very talented one at that, to come up with a well-design policy and measures to urgently prevent the deepening of existing levels of poverty and inequality in this country."
