By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Price Control Commission’s (PCC) chairman yesterday said he had urged the Government to cut the duty rate on eggs by two-thirds as he warned consumers to brace for shortages within a week.

Danny Sumner told Tribune Business: “Items that are price controlled under the breadbasket items list, they are VAT free. Most items that are not price controlled that are out there are dutiable and carry VAT. That’s why I say with eggs, for example, a lot of people don’t realise eggs carry a very high rate of duty, which is 30 percent and, of course, 12 percent VAT, which makes it 42 percent.

“Eggs are on the extended list, but not the breadbasket items list. Eggs are still dutiable, and then the mark-up price for eggs is ten percent. So that is 52 percent on those eggs before it gets in those consumers’ hands.”

Mr Sumner added, “In addition to that, the eggs that you see here are imported. The importation varies. Every year around this same time we do have an egg shortage from the egg farmers in Florida. I watched the local Floridian news yesterday, and the news were saying that there is an egg shortage in the Miami-Dade area.

“The farmers were saying that it will come a time when there would be a major egg shortage in the Florida area, but it has not gotten here yet, so let us see what happens. But there may be a possibility that there may be a shortage of eggs, depending on the farmers in Florida.

“According to the news that I watched on the local Floridian station, it may be shortly - within a week maybe - but they were saying that the problem was the hatchlings of the chickens that produce eggs. The farmers were complaining that when the stock they have runs out there will be a shortage.,” he added.

“I advised the Government that the best thing do now is to reduce the duty on eggs from 30 percent to 10 percent. If they do so they can retain the VAT, which is 12 percent, and the Government will still be getting directly 22 percent on eggs.

“If there is a shortage that means availability is going to be a problem, and once there is an availability problem and there is a demand on the availability, wholesalers in the United States normally go up on their price. That is normal. So by reducing the duty it would offset that.”

Recalling how The Bahamas has lost its ability to produce eggs for itself, Mr Sumner said: “We had Gladstone Farms, Rainbow Poultry and another farm that produced chickens and eggs. So you could have gone into the food store ten years ago, and you could look at three different eggs produced locally in The Bahamas.

“They also had an egg farm in Grand Bahama, and they also had an egg and chicken farm in Abaco. All of those are gone now, so government needs to seriously encourage farming for eggs and, consequently, once you start farming for eggs, chickens would come as well. We are importing too many chickens into this country.”

Mr Sumner then added: “When they land in The Bahamas there is another major problem. A lot of the eggs are damaged in shipping and handling. That is why you go into the food stores and you would see 20 cartons of eggs. Sometimes you go through the 20 and you find five of those cartons of eggs are cracked up, so that is a loss within itself.

“The retailers have told us in a meeting that they are losing badly on eggs because of the damages as they are processed, and as they are carried to the various establishments. They were asking government for an increase in the mark-up price. The mark-up price for price-controlled items is up to 23 percent, but eggs is the lowest at only 10 percent. So basically the retailers were not making much on eggs as it is, even though the price of eggs is high right now because of the availability of eggs coming out of Florida.”