The threat of recession

THE EDITOR: With the mounting food prices, what comes to mind is the food security of our country. This is a very serious issue and every citizen should consider it extremely urgent that solutions are found to deal with it.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to threaten to keep the food crisis growing and prominent on the world stage. The war has also caused gasoline prices to skyrocket, resulting in many Trinidad and Tobago citizens continuing to see hard times as they are unable to make ends meet.

The frightening part of this situation is that we are heading down the road to a recession as our economic growth continues to decline. In a recession a country’s economic output declines, unemployment rises, basic commodity prices rise and retail sales fall. Further, businesses will try to reduce their spending and this will affect the manufacturing sector where production of goods are reduced.

With an already hurting economy and with consumers and businesses decreasing their spending, this can only cause more economic fallout.

The best way to insulate oneself from a recession is try to protect your finances by protecting your income, by getting new sources of income and by trying to get a salary increase. Its important to have a couple months of extra money put aside in case of an emergency, which can be devastating.

Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon advised recently that she would come up with solutions to ease the burden of increased food prices but to date we have not seen anything positive coming from her or her ministry. What we have seen are exorbitant prices of basic food items in certain groceries, with one saying the very high food prices on vegetable packages was a mistake.

Why are we seeing such high disparities in prices? Why has this not been addressed by the minister?

We have to look at solutions to the problems facing us and I provide some suggestions, such as weekly releases of price ranges that are acceptable now in an effort to prevent price gouging. We must also avoid businesses that have priced items unreasonably.

A flour subsidy and a fixed retail pricing of flour can help citizens in the short term, flour being a staple food item. Increase the school feeding programme so children at least get a meal while in school and expand the food card programme urgently so families that are really in need can receive the assistance they require.

All these things were done under the People’s Partnership headed by Kamla Persad-Bissessar when it was in office. Now all we have is talk and more talk, nothing of any real substance, from the current administration. Hopefully, with these suggestions the minister, who seems to be void of ideas and the capacity of creative thinking, can come up with something to curb the rising food prices and avert the recession on the horizon.

NEIL GOSINE

via e-mail