‘Self-glorifying’ efforts by Government fall short on providing solutions, says Shadow Home Affairs Minister
Government’s recent efforts to tackle the cost of living are gimmicky, inadequate and unsustainable, according to Michael Fahy.
The OBA’s Shadow Home Affairs Minister says the recently released ‘Affordable Bermuda Agenda’ is “far closer to a public relations exercise than a substantive economic plan.”
“…there are no measurable targets or fiscal commitments and Bermudians are being asked to trust that voluntary business cooperation and policy reviews will lower prices.”
“There is no enforcement, no timeline, no metrics.”
The nine month 20% discount on essential items may temporarily ease costs, he says, but “once the programme ends, prices will likely rebound unless market structure reforms such as competition policy are introduced.”
Mr Fahy harks back to the 10% grocery discount on Wednesdays under the OBA, which ran from December 2013 to February 2015.
He suggests this is “far better” than the essential goods relief, which he says “simply formalises supermarket discount programmes that existed before”.
He also suggests Government has pressured some food sellers to end or reduce pre-existing initiatives to give the new measures more credence – although he does not cite clear examples of such actions.
The Shadow Minister says there is no plan to change our dependency on imported goods, and that “loose commentary that CARICOM will somehow magically reduce importation costs falls short on detail…”.
Turning to OBA plans, Mr Fahy repeats that the “own goal” of the sugar tax needs to be scrapped, and a switch to LNG fuels and different construction methods should be explored.
Subsidising shipping costs and increasing the population are also measures that should be considered, he says.
In conclusion, Michael Fahy acknowledges that lowering living costs is not easy, but says “what is easy are gimmicks.”
“And a cost of living summit and subsequent report which told us what we already know was just that. Gimmicks.”
