THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on April 26 in the years identified:

1989:unwelcome” “Necessary, but

price increases on eight basic food items are announced in Parliament by Claude Clarke, minister of industry and commerce. Chicken meat moves by 80 cents from $4.70 to $5.50 a lb, bread by 56 cents from $3.40 to $3.96 a 2lb loaf, cornmeal by 20 cents from 65 cents to 85 cents a lb, counter flour by 16 cents from 82 cents to 98 cents a lb, salt fish by $2.66 from $5.29 to $7.95 a lb, sardines by 79 cents from $1.61 to $2.40 a tin, Betty brand condensed milk by 56 cents from $2.39 to $2.95 a tin, Nestle condensed milk by 65 cents from $2.60 to $3.25 a tin, and bulk rice by 10 cents, from $1.85 to $1.95 a lb. Clarke says the increases had become necessary as they had been kept unrealistically low and there is also a need to close the budgetary gap of the Jamaica Commodity Trading Company, the state trading company, which had been subsidising some of these items and spending more and more from its budget. The increases are necessary to prevent several enterprises from going bankrupt or laying off staff, he says. 1993:Revenue

Swift action by the Protection Division (RPD) and the security forces lead to the seizure of some 5,000 cases of the edible oil from three warehouses in Kingston. The goods are suspected of being imported without the relevant licence and the required duties being paid on them. Two thousand cases of product are seized from the KIW warehouse on Spanish Town Road and an estimated 3,000 cases of oil and other goods are taken from two warehouses on the Broadway premises on Marcus Garvey Drive. The haul comes swiftly on the heels of seizures of $2 million worth of oil, margarine and shortening during the past weeks. Illegal importation of edible oil and related products has had the effect of causing one of the largest suppliers of oil in the island, Caribbean Products Ltd, to cut back its production.