Roadside sales pull crowds -- in fight against VAT price gougers
By Clifford Stanley
Guyana Chronicle
January 29, 2007
A GUYANA Marketing Corporation (GMC) lorry loaded with zero-rated food items plied the West Berbice Highway yesterday and many who shopped from it said the prices were a huge relief from those being charged by some shops in the area.
The silver grey Canter moving and often parked along the roadside was filled with flour, sugar, white rice, split peas, garlic and cooking oil and GMC staff who did brisk work weighing and selling to a steady stream of customers.
“All of these GMC prices are lower than that which we are charged in the shops,” one housewife said.
She regretted that she had bought most of her food supplies on Friday since she would have been able to either purchase more goods or save some money.
“When are you coming back?” shoppers asked, pausing for a moment to hear the answer before moving off with bags and carton boxes filled with items.
“We will notify you long in advance next time,” a GMC staffer promised.
“Bring aloo (potato), toilet paper, toothpaste and brown rice when you come back,” one satisfied shopper shouted as the vehicle moved on.
The GMC roadside sales trip in West Berbice yesterday was done in implementation of a promise by the government to utilise the corporation to bring relief to shoppers in rural areas, many of whom have claimed that businesspeople in these areas had raised prices inordinately since the implementation of the VAT system.
The GMC sales activity was articulated by Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Robert Persaud, while addressing concerns about post-VAT high food prices raised by sugar workers during a meeting at the Blairmont sugar estate, West Bank Berbice, last week.
Persaud had promised to get the GMC on the road with the basic supplies that are zero-rated and with the prices at which these items should be sold.
He told sugar workers this strategy would educate shoppers on the correct prices as well as give warning to unscrupulous businesspeople to become competitive or lose sales.
Yesterday’s sales trip by the GMC was the first of the promised such interventions.
Staff said they sold out half of the truckload of zero-rated items during a four-hour stop at Bath Settlement.
The GMC Canter made additional stops and sold to sizeable crowds at D’Edward, West Coast Berbice, and at Blairmont and Shieldstown, West Bank Berbice.
The Agriculture Ministry Saturday announced that in collaboration with the GMC, it would have been sending mobile trucks to sell supplies of basic commodities to Berbice and Linden.
One truck, it said, was also scheduled to be in Tain on the Corentyne yesterday.
The truck with supplies for Linden will be in that community tomorrow, the ministry reported.
It said the dispatching of the trucks follows surveys in areas where it was found that business persons had increased the prices of zero-rated and exempt items when there was no reason to do so.
The ministry said it will also be examining a similar intervention for the Essequibo Coast.
Adjustments to the VAT regime are expected to cause a further drop in food prices in hinterland communities, the ministry said.