Before COVID 19, prices in Trinidad and Tobago were relatively stable and reasonably affordable. Then came the two year global crisis. We were told that shipping costs had exploded, manufacturing costs had risen, supply chains had collapsed and food prices had to increase.
Fair enough but COVID is over.
So why have the prices never come back down?
The uncomfortable question is whether COVID became the greatest excuse ever handed to capitalism to permanently reset prices. A temporary crisis became a permanent price increase, while consumers were simply told to accept it.
Government must stop hiding behind the phrase “global inflation”. If shipping, manufacturing and supply chains have largely recovered, why are consumers still paying inflated prices?
And where is the serious investigation into pricing, profit margins, competition and possible profiteering?
The ordinary citizen cannot increase his salary every time a business increases its prices. Yet Government continues to tell us to tighten our belts while businesses pass every increased cost real or alleged directly to the consumer.
COVID may have lasted two years. The financial punishment imposed on consumers appears to have no expiry date.
Government needs to start asking the hard questions because the people certainly are.
Gordon Laughlin,
Westmoorings
