Sugar rationing resumes nationwide amid smuggling crisis – Love FM Belize News and Music Power

Tonight, sugar is once again being rationed in stores across the country. In recent weeks, bags of sugar have reportedly been smuggled across the border to neighboring Mexico, where it costs more. The government has been trying to stop this for months, as sugar remains scarce on the local market. To address this, the Ministry of Agriculture will submit a report to the Cabinet within two weeks on what an acceptable increase in the price per pound of sugar would be. Yesterday, Prime Minister John Briceno spoke on the situation, with both the government and opposition in the House of Representatives agreeing.

His Excellency John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “We also have a social responsibility to the Belizean consumer. Secondly, we cannot compete with prices in Chetumal. In Chetumal, brown sugar is selling for close to $2 a pound, while BSI sells it for 34 cents a pound. So if you want to say we have to raise prices over there to stop smuggling, that’s not going to happen, we’re not going to do that. But thirdly, it’s also unfair to the sugar cane growers because we are effectively subsidizing sugar for other consumers, so the fourth point I would make is, as the minister said, we have to find a formula to justify the price increase that will help the growers and help us find the best way to slow down smuggling attempts, but we also have to work on enforcement, there’s a lot to do. He said the price control department would go to the supermarkets and tell them where the sugar was bought and from where, and then trace it back from the store to the wholesaler to the BSI, and by reverse engineering you would know which wholesalers were not selling to the local stores. Then we could go to the BSI and tell them that these people were not selling the sugar to the local market, they were allowing the sugar to become contraband. In addition, we have to tighten border controls as much as possible, but as you know, our borders are very porous. Our borders are very wide and can be crossed at almost any point. So we have a lot of things to consider, and we can’t just lower prices or raise prices, because we’re not going to just raise prices to stop contraband from coming into Mexico and Guatemala.”

Belize produces approximately 160,000 to 180,000 tons of sugar annually and consumes approximately 13,000 to 17,000 tons annually.