Prices have risen by 23.9 per cent over the last five years, claims former Democratic Labour Party candidate for St Michael North West, Ryan Walters.
And while the average Barbadian is grappling with permanent problems resulting from these rising costs, Government has been largely unsuccessful in providing temporary solutions.
“It is no secret that in Barbados, consumers are facing the permanent problem of rising costs almost everyday. If it isn’t food, it is utilities, transportation, supplies, you name it, the price of it has risen. For those who have to monitor closely what they buy, they can tell you their countless stories of how prices increase in a matter of weeks and sometimes days.
“The past year has been interesting as I watched the Government put measures in place to combat the rising cost of food and goods. Interestingly enough, the favourite word used by Government officials was ‘temporary’. In other words, this Government was unable to deliver permanent solutions to a permanent problem,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
And he said Government could not continue to blame external factors “especially when the same Government benefits from more duty revenue, more tax revenue and more value added tax (VAT) revenue because the prices of goods have increased and taxes, duties and VAT are applied to the cost of the same good”. (Nation News)
