With Barbadians preparing to go to the polls on February 11, the spiralling cost of living will be a central concern for voters, according to Maureen Holder, executive director of the Barbados Consumer Empowerment Network (BCEN).
She said explanations for rising prices have failed to deliver meaningful relief for households already under strain.
Holder told the CAMPAIGN EXPRESS that consumers were facing “high prices everywhere”, with food, household goods, utilities, transport and basic services now consuming an ever-growing share of household income, even as wages struggled to keep pace.
She pointed to official figures showing that food inflation remained elevated, with prices still about 1.2 per cent higher year-on-year in October 2025, a burden magnified by Barbados’ heavy reliance on imported goods.
“While headline inflation may appear modest, the reality for households is stark,” she said, noting that staple food items in Barbados often cost 30 to 50 per cent more than comparable goods overseas. She added that average monthly grocery bills now exceeded $460 for many families, with larger households facing significantly higher costs where spending power allowed.
Against that backdrop, the consumer rights activist contended that Barbadians were increasingly frustrated by a steady stream of explanations from retailers and business groups, ranging from global shipping disruptions and freight costs to currency pressures, geopolitical tensions and, more recently, the increase in the minimum wage.
“These narratives may describe causes, but they do nothing to reduce prices at the checkout, which is what consumers actually care about,” she said.
Holder added that while business organisations were quick to defend pricing pressures, there had been little public discussion about concrete measures to shield households from the impact of global cost shocks.
The BCEN head also questioned the effectiveness of Government-led price transparency initiatives, such as online price-checking tools, arguing that in a small and highly concentrated market, information alone did not translate into affordability.
“In a market like ours, knowing that another retailer charges marginally less does not provide real relief when all prices are high,” she said, stressing that consumer choice remained limited when import channels were tightly controlled and cost increases were passed swiftly down the supply chains.
She said the issue was not whether costs had risen, but how those costs were managed and shared. According to BCEN, nearly every increase along the import chain – including freight, port charges, insurance, exchange costs and wholesale mark-ups – was ultimately borne by consumers, with little evidence of buffering or cost absorption elsewhere in the system.
Particularly troubling to Holder was the growing tendency to blame the recent minimum wage increase for higher prices. She recalled public warnings from sections of the retail sector that the adjustment from $8.50 to $10.50 per hour would trigger a “domino effect” on costs, an argument she said ignored the fact that prices were already rising well before the wage change took effect.
“The minimum wage adjustment was long overdue and aimed at helping low-paid workers meet basic living costs that had already risen sharply,” she said, adding that even after the increase, wages still lagged behind the real cost of living. To suggest that improved wages were driving inflation, she argued, risked shifting blame onto workers who were already struggling .
She stressed that people were increasingly looking for more than explanations, calling instead for clear policy commitments that addressed affordability. Holder noted that Barbados urgently needed
a coordinated approach to food price shocks, one that set out how the burden of rising global costs would be shared between Government, businesses and households.
Among the measures proposed by BCEN were temporary, targeted tax relief on essential imports during periods of acute price pressure, greater scrutiny of pricing practices, voluntary restraint on margins for staple goods, and more active enforcement of competition and consumer protection laws.
“Barbadians have heard enough justifications,” Holder said. “What is now required is leadership that turns understanding into relief.”
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