Minister Mai Denies Facilitating Sugar Smuggling

Jose Abelardo Mai, the Minister of Agriculture, says he has never called in any favors on behalf of individuals smuggling sugar across Belize’s border. His statement follows reports that sitting ministers have been requesting that sugar smugglers be given a pass at the western and northern border points, as they seek to illegally transport sugar into neighboring countries. Wholesalers are fetching double the price of locally produced sugar across the border. Minister Mai acknowledged that sugar smuggling is one of the primary causes of sugar shortage in Belize.  He also says that the accusations against him and his Cabinet colleagues are simply mischief making.

 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture
“Well this is not abnormal to hear the accusations, especially when elections are coming. Bit I will tell you something and I said this to Mr. Patt who I believe is my friend. He is a farmer and we share many conversations together. I said in parliament this Minister, Jose Mai, has never picked up the phone to call anybody to give them any break to transport sugar and I can categorically say that. Clearly, I this man has never done so and will never do so when it comes to sugar. Because we have been seeing this problem for a very long time now and I have been trying to fight and fix the problem. It is not easy. I am between a rock and a hard place, because I have taken this issue to Cabinet a number of times. The only way we will fix and I am not sure it will fix it completely is to make some proper adjustments to the sugar structure. The maximum wholesale price for sugar is seventy-five cents. It is sold at sixty-seven cents. That is a nine cents increase. For brown sugar it is thirty four cents and sold at thirty nine cents, five cents. Can you imagine somebody from Toledo coming to buy a thousand sacks of sugar or five hundred sacks and sell it for that? Who will he sell it to? And sell it to the Chinese store, he can only sell it for seventy-five cents.  So there is np profit. The only people that can survive selling sugar with that price control in place are those in the wholesale business with other products. So you load your truck with all import products and one subsidize the other. But it is difficult for anybody who is only in the business of selling sugar to survive selling that sugar locally.”