Industry Ministry Keeping Close Watch on Prices Following Hurricane Melissa

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Senator the Hon. Aubyn Hill says his ministry is monitoring commercial activities to prevent price gouging following the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

The Minister was speaking on Friday (November 7) during a tour of Caribbean Cement Company Limited (CCCL) at Rockfort in Kingston, where he viewed the company’s CEMEX Cement production.

Senator Hill noted while there are no issues of price gouging with cement as CCCL is producing enough to support the country, agencies under his ministry are keeping abreast of the broader market.

He disclosed that the agencies were observing market prices prior to the hurricane making landfall in Jamaica on October 28 and have returned to their surveillance since the category five storm passed.

“I have the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) in the field; [they] have been in the field from just before the hurricane, and have been out there back again,” Senator Hill said.

“Food Storage and Prevention of Infestation Division (FSPID), which is an agency of ours that checks food that you don’t have rats in there and… it’s not mouldy. We are doing that, and National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA) does all the testing of other products, and the Bureau of Standards is right here doing the testing,” the Minister added.

Ahead of the hurricane, the Government issued a Trade Order after Jamaica was declared a threatened area under the Disaster Risk Management Act (DRMA) prohibiting retailers from increasing the prices of essential products for the length of the declared period.

Senator Hill pointed out that a reported case of price gouging in Montego Bay was investigated and found to be an issue of supply and demand, causing the price of the item to increase.

“What has happened is, you remember the trucks couldn’t get to places in the west…. When you have that shortage of supply, and the strong demand that there would be because people sometimes don’t even have a house, they have to have food, they have to have all these things, then naturally in the market, there tends to be an increase in price. That doesn’t make it price gouging,” Senator Hill explained.

He added however that he expects that prices will soon return to normal as roads are being cleared creating access to western parishes.

“In a relatively short period of time, I fully expect that roads are being opened, supplies become more plentiful, people don’t have to feel that they’re not going to get it (supplies), and therefore they can wait, and prices can moderate and come back to where they’re normal, and we expect that to happen,” the Minister said.

In the meantime, Senator Hill has expressed his ministry’s commitment to continue looking after the country’s commercial activities, its safety and price fairness in the market.