Terry Lister has called on Government to establish a price control board to limit the prices of essential food items in Bermuda.

The Independent MP branded the ten percent discount on Wednesdays offered in supermarkets Island-wides as nothing more than a Band-Aid approach to a serious problem tearing families apart.

Implemented following a Throne Speech promise by the One Bermuda Alliance, the discount was intended to help alleviate some of the burden placed on families struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly difficult economic climate.

“While the Government seemed pleased about this, I see no reason to be pleased about it,” Mr Lister said. “We have a continuing rise in food costs and an extra five percent off on rising prices is not guaranteed to be effective.”

Mr Lister also claimed that prices for certain goods differed from shop to shop, even within the same chain. Something he said made ‘no sense to me as a consumer’.

“If you go to Company A in their Somerset shop, then you go to the Warwick shop, and then you go to the Hamilton shop, to purchase the exact same item, it’s three different prices.

“I can’t explain that, but it makes no sense to me as a consumer,” he said.

“I believe it’s the overheads, and the costs of running each shop. But I shouldn’t be responsible for the cost of running their shop. The goods arrived in Bermuda in the same container, and it was split and sent in three different directions. So I should be able to get it at the same price.

“When things are good you turn a blind eye to a lot of things. But things aren’t good and so the proposal is that we establish a food price control board.”

Under Mr Lister’s proposal a price control board would meet with wholesalers to hammer out a list of essential goods that would be subject to price controls.

The items would be a combination of grocery products and food items, with the number of items deemed essential also to be thrashed out.

These items would then be listed for a 12-week period, with the board and wholesalers meeting on a regular basis to review the list of items, and how much they should cost.

“It’s not fair to the retailer to have him stuck on January 1 with a price that he’s got to carry until December 31 while his costs go up over that 12-month period,” said Mr Lister. “Instead, they’ll carry that fixed price from January until the end of March, with a new price carried until June 30 and so on and so on. And so the consumer would get four jumps.”

Mr Lister would also require all major stores to sign up to the price control system, and they would be expected to charge the same price Island-wide.

“When you walk into a store in Somerset, and your brother who lives in St David’s walks into a store, you buy the same item, for the same price,” he said. “It hasn’t been like that all of this time because of the free market, and there’s nothing wrong with free market, there’s nothing dirty about the word profit. I believe in all of that, but these are particular times.”