Ameen: Forex shortage driving up food prices

St Augustine MP Khadijah Ameen has said the country is seeing an alarming rise in basic food items because the Government is mismanaging foreign exchange.

She was speaking at the UNC’s Opposition press briefing held virtually and at the party’s Chaguanas headquarters on August 18.

She cited CSO reports, which said the average price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 8.6 per cent between July 2022 and July 2023.

“A major issue is the severe foreign exchange shortage that has driven up the price on the black market for foreign exchange,” she said.

“It creates a domino effect, because the prices at the grocery stores have skyrocketed because importers and producers are struggling to secure the necessary foreign exchange to purchase food and raw material.”

She said food prices were lower in 2015 when the UNC/PP partnership was in power.

She added that foreign exchange issues are affecting small agriculture processors.

“(They) are being squeezed out. They cannot compete in this hostile environment where big businesses are being given foreign exchange and they are being denied. Without foreign exchange, they will not be able to purchase what they need to produce food.”

She poked at Minister of Trade Paula Gopee-Scoon, who suggested the nation could see a drop in food prices soon. Responding to her statement that volumes of food imported have been going down, Ameen suggested that it could be because of a lack of foreign exchange.

“I wonder if it didn’t occur to Minister Gopee-Scoon that the volumes of food being imported is lower because importers are not getting the foreign exchange that they need, or that people are buying less because they have less money? Think about it and get back to us, please, Paula darling.”

The latest CSO report in May said the inflation rate for May 2024/May 2023 was calculated at 0.9 per cent, an increase from April 2024/April 2023, calculated at 0.5 per cent.

The CSO report indicated that the inflation rate had reduced dramatically from the same period year-on-year, from May 2023 to May 2022, which stood at 5.7 per cent.

No money to pay corporation workers

Ameen also complained that the Government has not allocated enough funds to pay corporation workers, forcing councillors to siphon funds away from key corporation functions to keep workers off the breadline.

“Regional corporations have been instructed to cease hiring and could be forced to terminate employees. This is happening because the allocations for wages and cola were not sufficient in the budget,” Ameen claimed.

“The Opposition raised this issue and the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Faris Al Rawi, as well as the Minister of Finance, indicated that it would get a supplementation in the mid-term. The mid-term review came along and they did put in money but not enough to cover the workers’ salaries until the end of the year.”

She said corporations led by the UNC are now forced to take money away from maintaining cemeteries, garbage collection and road maintenance as well as several public health expenditures to ensure wages can be paid.

“The UNC will not put workers on the breadline. We will save jobs,” she said.