By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement leader Michael Pintard called on the Davis administration to reverse its decision to enforce price controls on additional items, warning that to continue the measure is another ingredient to a “recipe for disaster” for hundreds of businesses in the country.

In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, Mr Pintard was adamant that a series of decisions made by the government have been “reckless”, saying he could see trouble coming from introducing additional items to the country’s price control list, higher electricity bills to come next month and an impending minimum wage increase.

His comments come days after Latrae Rahming, communications director in the Office of the Prime Minister, confirmed retailers were granted an extension to Friday for the adoption of new price controls, amid the government’s decision to expand its list of price-controlled items.

 Earlier this month, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis revealed in a national address that 38 items will be subject to price controls.

 Given what is to come, retailers have questioned how businesses were supposed to survive the double blow.

 However, despite a series of meetings with stakeholders, the government seems firm on its decision saying in a statement Friday that while they’ve agreed to allow merchants up to October 31 to complete their respective transition processes, beginning November 1, enforcement of the final amended regulations will come.

“The government’s actions with respect to a series of decisions they’ve made recently is reckless and we predict that it is going to result in tremendous hardship on small and medium sized businesses, in particular but not exclusively and that impact is going to trickle down to impact consumers who they claim that they have an interest in supporting,” Mr Pintard said Sunday when he was asked whether in his view, the government had handled the situation properly.

“This will also impact employees who are going to also bear the brunt of the government decisions.”

Mr Pintard said the Davis administration has not conducted studies or proper consultation to ensure they were on the right track.

“The government neither conducted studies ahead of the decision that they have made nor did they consult. In both cases it’s a recipe for disaster when a government fails to conduct studies to look at impact and then secondly to at least consult stakeholders to at least see what consequences are likely to result from the decisions that they are making.

“Even after what they admitted were compelling reasons why they needed to pause, given the fact that a number of businesses signalled their inability to sustain this in some cases for weeks, others saying that it’s only a matter of months that they are going to begin to feel the result and their business is going to be devastated.

“So again the government wishes to proceed because again it was seeking to appease members of the public whom they have just unleashed 163 percent increase on fuel charge and the government was trying to find a way to bail itself out of a tremendous backlash from a public that is justifiably angry with them.”

He continued: “So, they have gone from a very bad decision on BPL which came about because of their own failure to act in a timely manner, to a far worse situation by now inflicting harm on businesses and so we say to the government that they ought to reverse the horrible decision that they have made.

“They should remove VAT off the breadbasket items one, and then they should remove VAT off of that new mix of items that they are considering under price control.

“Remove the VAT. That would help achieve some relief for residents but listen to business persons, listen very carefully and assess whether or not you are going to devastate possibly hundreds of businesses.”

He maintained that recent actions of the government flew in the face of what was promised while the Progressive Liberal Party was in opposition.

“Without question (this is a recipe for disaster),” Mr Pintard said.

“The 163 percent is just the fuel charge. The next effect of that is some 35 percent overall increase of the cost of electricity even for the most vulnerable of society whom the government claims to have concern of and it also results in a near almost 100 percent increase for middle class Bahamians. That is devastating for businesses that employ Bahamians.

“Devastating for the consumers themselves and so again the government has made a horrible decision there. That could have been averted had they executed the trades that were recommended to them when they came to government.

“Now on top of that they have gone ahead and put all of these items under price control without the benefit of a study and without the benefit of consultation.

“Again we support unequivocally making sure that we have liveable wages but the government again proceeded down that road without again doing a proper assessment of the net impact.

“So, there has been a series of decisions that they made again flying in the face of what they said when they were in opposition, which is the need for studies so that you could make evidence based decisions and secondly the need for consultation with stakeholders who are the ones keeping this economy afloat,” Mr Pintard said.

On Friday Mr Rahming explained the reason for the extension.

“We will extend the period of conversation to next week Friday. The government realises and recognises that we share the burden with all of our partners in this effort, in the fight against the global economic crisis. So, they will get an extension to next week Friday,” Mr Rahming said.

The government is planning to limit the wholesale and retail markup on items like diapers, and food including chicken, eggs, bread, bananas, apples, oranges, broccoli, onions, and potatoes.