ACCORDING to the newspapers yesterday, the National Milling Company has announced increases in the prices of flour of various weights. The company cited rise in the price of wheat for the increase locally.

From what I have read this has come about because wheat farmers abroad have been getting a big pay off to grow corn instead of wheat for the purpose of manufacturing bio-fuel.

This is not a good sign, since millions of people the world over depend on wheat flour for cooking purposes, apart from baking bread and cakes.

I think some time ago the Guyana Government made an intervention regarding flour, and withdrew licences for the importation of the commodity.

I would have thought that freeing up the licencing system for the importation of flour might have led to a kind of competition on the local market and the commodity would have been sold at competitive prices.

The government has since withdrawn VAT from a number of food items in order to bring some help to the people. While this is good, there are still a number of items out of the reach of the ordinary man.

I think something should be done about the increase in the price of flour. We do not want to go back to the days of cassava flour.
J SATTAUR