Email

Print

Steven Okeke
"It's shutting our business completely. In fact of the past two weeks it's been difficult to get what we need. We have been stealing buying - you send one staff to go to one shop and buy a pound because they can't give you more than a pound. Then you send the next staff to buy 5 pounds somewhere because they are rationing sugar in Belize as if there is war. It's unfortunate they are shutting down the business, there are similar business like this is shutting down too. In our own case we need the sugar as preservative because our juices are natural. After 3 hours they will crack, so we use the sugar to help it stay up to six hours - we don't use it to enhance the sweetness just to help it to stay natural. we need it badly because that is the only way we can do business. We are making effort to increase more business - why should we let the ones we have created already get destroyed? the guy from BSI is saying that the quota that us meant for the distributors is sent to the distributors - some of the distributors are sending it over to Guatemala that's his own words because in Guatemala it fetches 6 times the price in Belize. If somebody sends a bag of sugar to Guatemala - they guy makes $250.00 profit, so 2,000 bags gives you half a million dollars in two days, so it's a good business anyway but we are saying give us some sugar. I went to the Belize Marketing Board and they said yesterday that they only have 25 bags for all their customers. I went to Cisco distributors and they say their warehouse is empty, in fact some of the distributors are saying that it is Belize Marketing Board that is colluding with somebody to send the sugar to Guatemala. This is something that can be simply be investigated, go to Belize Marketing Board and find out if the quantity they say they are sending to the distributors is actually been sent to the distributors and find out from the distributors if they are receiving the quantity they say have been sent to them."

According to BSI, there is not a sugar shortage - at least not on their part. In a telephone interview with Marketing Manager Damian Goff, he explained that the shortage is not a result of sugar under-production - instead they have received information that there is an illicit cross border trade taking place - where sugar is leaving the country for Guatemala and Mexico where it is being purchased for more than double the price.

Damian Goff, BSI Marketing Manager
"I'll state for the record that categorically there isn't a sugar shortage in the country right now and certainly not one that is in any way related production or capacity of production. We are on track to have one of the best crops that we have had production wise over the last 3-4 years. Certainly we will surpass last year's production. What happens is that as a company we only produce a certain amount of white sugar or the local market on a year to year basis, based on historical consumption patterns of the Belizean consumers and so we normally only produce about 14,000 tons of sugar for the local market every year and this year we expect that the market should be able to consume that same amount of sugar so we will produce sugar to meet what the market has historically consume. What I will say is that, what we think is at the root of the problem why they maybe the appearance of a sugar shortage is that due to prices for sugar in the neighboring Guatemala and Mexico - what we have found is that there is a significant amount of cross-border trade occurring where Belizeans are buying sugar from the factory and there is a significant volume that is making its way over the border. We don't necessarily have any control over that because we sell freely to businesses and freighters that are buying sugar in bulk with the intension of servicing the local market but what apparently seems to be happening is that in many instances a good portion of the sugar is making its way across the border and so it's being done almost to the detriment of the legitimate users of sugar in the Belizean market in that they are unable to get the amount of sugar that they need."

Monica Bodden
"So you are saying that this sugar shortage has nothing to do with BSI?"

Damian Goff, BSI Marketing Manager
"Yes, I'll say that categorically, as I said it's not necessarily one of production we are fully on track to produce the amount of sugar that we normally produce for the local market."