Despite the government's move to eliminate or reduce custom duties on certain food items, Chairman of the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) Philip Beneby pointed out that the reductions are not being passed on to consumers.
In a recent interview with Guardian Business, Beneby said the matter was raised during the commission's first meeting with Labour Minister Dion Foulkes.
"...The deduction in some of these percentages in imports is not being passed on to the customers. That is perhaps one of the first orders of business we will continue," he said.
Beneby explained that the CPC would be looking to see if suppliers/vendors have a system in place to ensure the declines in import taxes are being passed on to the Bahamian people.
And to accomplish this goal, Beneby said a team would be going around to local food supply stores.
"We have about, I believe, 15 to 18 inspectors," he said.
"We are going to be utilizing some of them on the CPC team to do the investigation and leg work.
"We hope in another week or two to get that going.
"We need to be a little more active and drill a bit deeper in terms of things mentioned."
Beneby also said that a lot of "damage", in terms of high prices, can be seen in smaller grocery outlets.
"They ratchet up their prices quite a bit. What you may get for $5 in the bigger [stores] might be $6 in the smaller [stores]," he said.
"We seem to focus a lot on the big boys so much as opposed to smaller operations but the smaller ones, who are in the community, are doing the damage.
"The people who need to take advantage of these discounts are in the urban communities."
Government said it would be eliminating or reducing import duties on certain products including milk, yogurt and ice cream, bread, cakes, pastries and chips, salmon fillets, shrimp and prawns, pastas and pizza sauce, fruit drinks, canned or preserved vegetables, jams fruit jellies and marmalades and fruit or nut purees, mixtures of fruits and nuts, and soy sauce.

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