Investigation Underway to Identify Sugar Contrabandists

And one of the main reasons why contrabandists are drawn to exporting sugar illegally into Mexico is because they fetch a premium price on the other side of the northern border. So, is the solution to raise the price on the local market? Prime Minister Briceño says that will not happen, because his administration has a social responsibility to Belizeans. So, a price control team is now going from store to store to find out which wholesalers are fulfilling their obligations to sell locally. The ones that are found to not be selling their sugar to the local stores may become prime suspects.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We also have a social responsibility to the Belizean consumers. Secondly, we cannot compete with the prices across in Chetumal. The brown sugar being sold at BSI for thirty-two cents a pound is almost being sold for two dollars a pounding Chetumal. So if you want to say we have to raise the price like over there to stop the contraband, it is not going to happen. But thirdly, it is also not fair on the cane farmers who have been in effect subsidizing sugar for the rest of our consumers and so the fourth point I would like to make is that what he has said, the Minister is that we have to find  formula where we can justify, increase and assist the farmers to help try to see how best it can slow down the attempt to contraband. We also have to work on enforcement. There is a number of things. Price control have been going to these supermarkets and asking them, who do you buy your sugar from, wanting to trace from the store to the wholesaler to BSI and by doing that reverse engineering you will be able to see who of these wholesalers are not selling to the stores. And then we can go to BSI and say look these people are not selling to the local market and are allowing it to be contraband. Also, we must tighten our borders. Our borders are porous. We have a very large border and you can almost cross at any point. So there are many things we have to take into consideration and it is not just a clear cut, oh just raise the price.”