The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value’s owner says the food chain will have to change 77,000 prices in 13 different stores to accommodate Value-Added Tax (VAT), warning that when it came to opposition to the new tax “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.

Illustrating the scale of the adjustments large food retailers will need to make come July 1, Rupert Roberts joked that his information technology (IT) specialist had rushed to hospital when he realised the amount of work required.

“When we close on June 30, and before we open on July 1 morning, we have to change 77,000 prices in 13 stores,” Mr Roberts told Tribune Business in a recent interview. “That will take a long night.

“My IT man realised that in one store alone he’s got to do 77,000 price changes in one night, and there’s 13 stores.”

The Super Value president reiterated the food retail/wholesale industry’s concern over the Government’s demand that they show consumers two sets of prices for the same product - one inclusive of VAT, the other exclusive.

The Government believes that showing consumers the ‘broken out’ VAT portion will help to prevent price gouging, but the Bahamian retail industry is arguing that global practice in virtually all VAT countries is to show just one price inclusive of the tax.

“We want VAT inclusive, as they do in other countries,” Mr Roberts said. “They want it broken out. There’ll be riots in the supermarkets. If we remind them every day, we’re just making it terrible for ourselves.”

He argued that the Government’s dual VAT pricing structure would serve as a constant reminder to consumers of price increases, whereas inclusive-only prices would enable them to eventually become accustomed to the change.

“VAT will be total devastation for the economy,” Mr Roberts told Tribune Business.

He added that it “doesn’t make any sense” to introduce the tax “in the middle of a recession”, again pointing to how the UK “tweaked” its VAT to assist businesses and consumers during the recent downturn.

“I think you will see a big resistance to VAT going forward,” Mr Roberts said. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. I personally hope the Coalition can work something out with the Government. I certainly hope for the country’s sake they’re successful.”

The Super Value owner said he deliberately chose not to respond when Ishmael Lightbourne, the Ministry of Finance’s consultant, singled him out by name for being ‘obstructive’ to the Government’s tax and fiscal reform plans.

Mr Roberts suggested that if he did respond, this would only have served to distract from the real issues surrounding VAT by ‘personalising’ the situation - an outcome he suggested may have been desired by the Government.

Meanwhile, Mr Roberts said Super Value’s Christmas performance gained “a little edge” from the $1 million boost provided by Atlantis’s employee ham and turkey business, enabling it to at least match 2012 comparisons.

He told Tribune Business, though, that he was so focused on generating new business that he had not checked the figures for Christmas/New Year 2013.

“This economy, you’re too busy trying to find another $1 of sales rather than analysing the past. Rather than look at the dead, you’re trying to save the living,” Mr Roberts said.

“I have to look for the business, not do post-mortems on the past.”