By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterLOCALLY-BASED PUBLISHING house, Carlong Publishers (Caribbean) Limited, has damned the Consumer Affairs Commission's (CAC) suggestion that book merchants are heaping huge profit mark-ups on consumers prior to the new school year.
The publishers are claiming that in the Government-funded consumer lobby group's 2003 School Text Book Survey, the 2002 price references for four book examples provided are incorrect. Carlong provided its 'published prices', for those same books, for June 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, in a memo circulated through the media yesterday.
"They (the CAC) have used prices from June 2000 and June 2001 as the starting point for their calculations on the assumption that those were the June 2002 prices," the publishing house said.
CAC'S CLAIMS
According to the CAC, the price hikes include a 100 per cent increase in the cost of the history text, A Post-Emancipation History of the West Indies. That book, it said, sold for about $487 in 2002 but now retails for $977 in some stores. The survey also determined hefty increases for the Spanish text, Viva Practice Book II, the English literature text, Old Story Time, and The Young Warriors.
However, Carlong stated that the just under $500 figure suggested for A Post-Emancipation History in 2002 was, in fact, the cost of the book in June 2000. According to its own figures, the book sold for $669.50 in 2002. That price, when measured against this year's market price, indicates a 46 per cent increase and not the massive hike suggested by the CAC.
WAS THE SURVEY FLAWED?
Both the CAC and the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) have said the expected increases in textbook prices for the upcoming school year should be no more than 60 per cent.
But, the CAC said on Monday that parents could expect to pay increases of 70 per cent or more for the books.
Speaking to The Gleaner on Tuesday, Steadman Fuller, a BIAJ director, said he considered the CAC survey flawed as he doubted the veracity of the prices stated for book purchases made in 2002.
To that, CAC Director of Research, Raymond Price, told The Gleaner that the commission would "stand resolute in our methodology."
Mr. Price explained that at each book store visited by the CAC during the survey, the book merchant or a representative would sign a document demonstrating his agreement with the prices recorded.
