Dumas says food suppliers abusing consumers; Panday says stop the blame game

Another government minister went on an attack in Parliament Friday in an attempt to shift blame for food inflation from the Manning administration to the private sector. Labour Minister Rennie Dumas told the House food suppliers are abusing the population by refusing to shift food prices downward despite the fact that such prices have dropped in other countries.

Dumas said food prices are going down internationally but said that's not happening at home. And he pointed to a deliberate move by the supermarkets Association of Trinidad and Tobago (SATT) and other food suppliers to gouge the consumers.

“Suppliers are abusing the population, knowing that food prices are returning to the level they were in October/December 2007. But this is not showing up in the prices we see on the grocery shelf,” Dumas said.

However the minister did not provide evidence to support his assertion that globally there is a decline in food prices, saying only that the information on lower food prices is “there”.

The opposition did not take the statement lightly.

Oropouche West MP Mikela Panday told Dumas that he and his government should not blaming everyone else and start taking some responsibility for the food crisis. The middle man was not the villain, she claimed.

The rookie MP, who is the daughter of opposition leader and former PM Basdeo Panday, put the blame for escalating food prices in the lap of the Manning administration, saying the government has failed to deal with the food price issue and encourages the dependence on imported food.

Panday said government cannot abdicate responsibility for helping create the food crisis. While acknowledging that much of the food inflation she said the Manning administration has encouraged the dependence on food imports.

She noted that since 2002 under the Manning regime, the price of food has steadily gone up and is the single most important cause of double digit inflation. Yet she claimed that the government is nothing nothing to correct the problem.

"That is why we are in the position we are in today. This
problem has not simply cropped out of nowhere," she said noting that low income earners are
finding it difficult to feed themselves and their children."

Panday said the government's policies are wrong and have led to the collapse of the domestic agricultural industry.

She said the government to give land to those who are capable and willing to farm but instead was doing the opposite. She said real farmers have to squat and watch government bulldozers destroy their crops.

She said the pain and suffering from high food prices is not exclusive to opposition supporters. The poor and dispossessed who voted for the PNM are equally suffering, she noted. All this while Manning and his government are spending the people's money on all sorts of other things, leaving people unable to
feed their children.

She said while farmers are crying for help and government, in typical PNM fashion, is turning a blind eye to what used to be a profitable venture. She challenged government to encourage people to plant peas instead of finding someone to blame for everything.

Pigeon peas and beans can grow naturally in Trinidad and Tobago yet the nation imports them, she observed. And she pointed out that while common ground provisions can thrive in local conditions the country still imports yam, cassava and other similar food supplies.