SASCHA WIL­SON

Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT) pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee says if the lev­el of pan­ic buy­ing con­tin­ues in the wake of the an­nounce­ment of a first nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) case here, re­stric­tions may have to be placed on cer­tain items.

Fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s an­nounce­ment, the vol­ume of cus­tomers swarm­ing su­per­mar­kets, phar­ma­cies and oth­er busi­ness­es has sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased. Cus­tomers have been stock­ing up on hand san­i­tiz­ers, an­tibac­te­r­i­al wipes and sprays, chem­i­cal-clean­ing agents, toi­let pa­per and flu med­ica­tion in or­der to arm them­selves with the item nec­es­sary to fight the spread of the virus.

Ad­vis­ing cus­tomers against pan­ic buy­ing yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Diptee said, “We have some con­cerns that where there are short­ages (due to pan­ic buy­ing), that there is price goug­ing.”

He guar­an­teed that his 200-plus mem­bers will not be en­gag­ing in this un­scrupu­lous be­hav­iour, but said oth­er busi­ness­es may want to prof­it by cash­ing in on peo­ple’s des­per­a­tion.

“Be­cause where there is scarci­ty and where there is para­noia and des­per­a­tion, peo­ple will pay the prices to get the goods they want. We have re­ceived re­ports where prices are go­ing up at ran­dom su­per­mar­kets,” Diptee said.

Due to pan­ic buy­ing, how­ev­er, he said sev­er­al of his mem­bers have re­port­ed that their stocks have been de­plet­ed.

“Peo­ple are pan­ic buy­ing things like toi­let pa­per. You don’t need to buy that amount. We have a boun­ti­ful sup­ply of toi­let pa­per in this coun­try. There is no need to buy bales of it,” Diptee said, adding peo­ple were lit­er­al­ly clean­ing out whole cat­e­gories of clean­ing prod­ucts.

He agreed with Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce CEO Gabriel Faria that it might be­come nec­es­sary to place re­stric­tions on cer­tain goods.

“If the lev­el of buy­ing con­tin­ues as it is, we will have no choice but to place re­stric­tions. If buy­ing were to re­turn to a state of nor­mal­cy, then goods can run nor­mal­ly. We are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion day by day…how long the pan­ic buy­ing con­tin­ues, how low the stock gets,” Diptee said.

“We are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with sup­pli­ers about ware­house sup­plies, if they have, when they get­ting and at what price, be­cause we want to try to of­fer con­sis­tent prices to our con­sumers.”

He said they are al­so try­ing to cre­ate a clean and safe en­vi­ron­ment for staff and cus­tomers who are pur­chas­ing goods across the coun­try.

“It’s a bit of new ter­ri­to­ry for all of us, so we are try­ing to get every­one in the prac­tice of so­cial dis­tance, wash­ing hands, cough­ing in­to your el­bow in the ab­sence of a stan­dard­ised pro­to­col from the Min­istry of Health.”

He said staff mem­bers were giv­en hand san­i­tiz­ers, sinks were now avail­able to cus­tomers and trol­leys were be­ing cleaned reg­u­lar­ly with dis­in­fec­tant wipes at some lo­ca­tions.