CHARLES KONG SOO

Price Club Di­rec­tor Shamshad Ali says the su­per­mar­ket will com­mit a min­i­mum of $500,000 to as­sist peo­ple who have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by COVID-19.

He was speak­ing at the com­pa­ny’s Won­der and Joy prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny for its cus­tomers at its com­pound, in Cen­ter Pointe Mall, Ram­saran Street, Ch­agua­nas, Sat­ur­day.

Price Club Su­per­mar­ket al­so re­ceived the Peo­ple’s Choice Award for In­de­pen­dent Su­per­mar­ket of the Year Award 2021 by the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT).

Ali said, “For 2022, our goal is with the as­sis­tance of all the coun­cil­lors of each of the 22 elec­toral dis­tricts in Ch­agua­nas and Cou­va, to de­liv­er as­sis­tance as need­ed to those who are iden­ti­fied as be­ing se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by the cur­rent state of hard­ship.

“The Price Club shall con­tin­ue to as­sist com­mu­ni­ties where it can. We shall com­mit a min­i­mum of $500,000 to this project.

“COVID-19 has re­vealed that the pover­ty line is ris­ing, those fam­i­lies who may seem not to be in need, but by the loss of that month­ly pay­check, find them­selves in a po­si­tion where food is not avail­able on their ta­ble.”

He said some peo­ple were as­set rich but in­come poor, this was now ex­ac­er­bat­ed with the in­creas­ing food prices.

Ali re­vealed that lo­cal food pro­duc­tion was on the rise, but there was a long way to go to achieve food in­de­pen­dence on im­port­ed food.

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Richie Sookhai said when Price Club came in 1994, Ram­saran Street saw an up­ward tra­jec­to­ry in de­vel­op­ment.

He said this pros­per­i­ty by busi­ness­es re­flect­ed what the day­time com­merce of Ch­agua­nas was and al­so what the pos­si­ble night-time com­merce could be like that of Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Sookhai said with the help of all the dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty, he would like to see that ma­te­ri­alise.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat said peo­ple had to make the de­ci­sion if they want­ed to re­main healthy by eat­ing fresh foods in sea­son or high­ly processed for­eign foods and be con­front­ed by a va­ri­ety of health is­sues.

Al­so present at the event were Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee, Jus­tice of the Peace and Al­der­man Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Kar­ran Nan­coo and coun­cil­lor Per­se­ver­ance/Wa­ter­loo Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC) Dubraj Per­sad.