Prime Minister Owen Arthur can definitely stop price gouging, the People's Empowerment Party (PEP) said yesterday.

President of the PEP, David Comissiong,
also called the Prime Minister's rationalisation on a TV programme regarding price gouging over the weekend, as "lame-duck", and charged that Arthur remained afraid to touch the elite Barbadian merchant class.

"The Prime Minister
could easily impose price controls on delinquent, exploitative merchants
if he wanted to," Comissiong said yesterday.

The PEP leader charged that the Prime Minister does not have to enact any laws to impose controls, since a regime, the Miscellaneous Controls Act, was already in place.

Under the act, the minister responsible
for trade may carry
out investigations into
the prices charged for
any goods or services
in Barbados, and may
also "control and regulate the prices which goods
or any class or description of goods may be sold, whether by wholesale
or retail".

"Mr Arthur is therefore not serious when he complains about price gouging in Barbados.
He is only crying crocodile tears," Comissiong said.

Comissiong added that a PEP Government would utilise the Miscellaneous Controls Act to ensure price gouging ended, and that merchants received no more than a fair and reasonable mark up on the goods they sold to Barbadians.

"We are also proposing the establishment
of a local government system equipped
with a number of strategically located community-based food
and nutrition centres
that will function
as membership supermarkets
offering basic foodstuff
at rock-bottom prices," Comissiong added.
(BA/PR)