RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­censed that the price of dou­bles had in­creased by $1 al­though the Gov­ern­ment had re­moved VAT on sev­er­al ba­sic food items, sev­er­al cus­tomers re­fused to buy dou­bles at Has­sanali’s Green Shed in Debe yes­ter­day af­ter hear­ing that dou­bles had risen to $6.

Aloo pies with chan­na al­so sold for $6.50. Both items were pre­vi­ous­ly sold at $5.

“It is ridicu­lous. I went to Has­sanali’s and they in­creased the price of dou­bles by one dol­lar. They charg­ing an ex­tra fifty cents for chan­na. I am not buy­ing dou­bles for $6 and al­loo pie with chan­na for $6.50,” Neer­an­jan Bar­ban de­clared as he walked away.

Guardian Me­dia checked the price of dou­bles in South Trinidad and it var­ied from $2 to $6 al­though the price of oil has be­come cheap­er with the re­moval of VAT.

A spokesper­son at Has­sanali’s re­fused to ex­plain the price hike, how­ev­er, say­ing, “No­body can bash me for rais­ing my price.”

But oth­er ven­dors along the Debe strip, in­clud­ing Ho­sein’s In­di­an Del­i­ca­cies and Singh’s, kept their orig­i­nal price at $5. Kr­ish­na’s was closed for the day.

Ho­sein’s In­di­an Del­i­ca­cies own­er Sherie­da Ho­sein said any price in­crease of dou­bles at this time was un­jus­ti­fied, as the cost of ma­te­ri­als had been re­duced.

“I am sell­ing $5 each with free chan­na. We have tamarind sauce, an­char chan­na, every­thing free. I think rais­ing the price is hard. Our busi­ness is a tourist at­trac­tion, when you raise the price peo­ple will go. We make a prof­it at $5,” she said.

Ho­sein said while some com­modi­ties had in­creased since the re­moval of VAT, some prod­ucts like oil had been re­duced.

“On the first of No­vem­ber, the price will drop. Right now the price drop back from $300 for a keg of oil, we now pay $260 but the chan­na raised from $260 to $350,” she said.

De­spite this, Ho­sein said they were cog­nizant of the chal­lenges peo­ple are fac­ing and de­cid­ed not to raise their price.

“It is hard for some peo­ple to buy at $6,” she added.

Mean­while, at the Or­ange shed in Bar­rack­pore, Mynie Moti­lal sold her dou­bles at $4. She too agreed a price hike now was not war­rant­ed. 

“We are sell­ing at $4 for the past three years and we don’t in­tend to raise our prices. This is the price in this com­mu­ni­ty and we de­cid­ed to cope with the peo­ple and the prices too,” Moti­lal said.

At the M2 Ring Road in Debe, dou­bles al­so sold at $4.

At Clarke Road, Pe­nal, one ven­dor was sell­ing dou­bles for $2 but de­clined an in­ter­view.

Cus­tomer Sham Sook­er­ali said it was a pop­u­lar place be­cause of the price.

“We sup­port this place be­cause it is $2. Things so hard, why raise the price of dou­bles now? Every­one should be try­ing to drop their prices,” Sook­er­ali said.

Some peo­ple said they would boy­cott the ven­dors who are sell­ing dou­bles for $6.

Nigel Clement said dou­bles is a poor man’s food.

“The price in­crease is ridicu­lous. I will not pay $6 and $6.50,” he added. 

Mean­while, Waz­im Ali, of Ali’s Dou­bles, whose fam­i­ly has been sell­ing dou­bles in T&T since 1938, said the price in­crease is jus­ti­fied.

“Flour has gone up at some su­per­mar­kets by a $1-$3 per 10kg bag. The cost of oil has ef­fec­tive­ly dou­bled, from $180 in 2019 to $360 in 2021 a keg, for the box oil. Chan­na prices have in­creased from $240 to $260-$300 a bag. Pa­per, nap­kins and bags have al­so gone up in 2021,” he said.

He added, “Cur­rent­ly, a bag of pep­per is whole­sal­ing for $800, up from $500. A re­tail pep­per is $1 each. Man­go is $2 for one. Tamarind is $50 per pound, up from $25. Sea­son­ing prices have al­so in­creased. So a 12.5 per cent de­crease in cook­ing oil can­not negate the ef­fects of the over­all in­creas­es.”

He not­ed that labour costs have al­so gone up.

“The min­i­mum dai­ly wage for a skilled per­son to cut and press bar­rah or a wrap­per is $250. So re­al­ly, how is a $1 in­crease go­ing to com­pen­sate for these in­creas­es?” he added.