NEW DIGITAL PRICE-TRACKING TOOLS TO STRENGTHEN CONSUMER PROTECTION IN 2026

Basseterre, Saint Kitts, December 19, 2025 (SKNIS): While the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis undertakes efforts to rebase the basket of goods and services used to compile the Consumer Price Index, consumers in Saint Kitts and Nevis will be further empowered to make wise shopping choices thanks to a partnership between the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Information Technology, and the Digital Management Transformation Unit.

During the Budget Debate on December 19, 2025, Member of Parliament (MP) for Saint Christopher Six, the Right Honourable Dr. Denzil Douglas, shared that “a suite of innovative digital tools including a real time price monitoring mechanism, a dedicated mobile application for tracking essential food basket items, and a streamlined web-based portal for consumer complaints” will be introduced in 2026.

The Federation boasts an extremely high mobile penetration rate, and the technology-based tools seek to take advantage of this. Senior Minister Dr. Douglas, who is also the Minister of International Trade and Consumer Affairs, encouraged everyone to make use of these services when they are launched.

“We are asking you, before you go out, have your smartphone, look at the app [and see] who has the goods that you are looking for and at what price. That is how we have to do it,” he stated. “The days of having a factory full of flour and sugar and rice, and you sell it at a particular price, those days are gone. That’s not the world of today. But what is available to us are tools that we must use to track the prices of goods in our various supermarkets and go to those supermarkets where the prices … are affordable so that you can get the best bang for your money when you are shopping.”

The tools will revolutionise the government’s data collection and inform business practices, consumer patterns and consumption trends.

Our people (consumer officers) will go out and check the prices,” Senior Minister Douglas expressed. The data will be checked against importation records while analysing markup rates.

“This is what has to be done in order to protect our consumers and to ensure that there is fairness in what is being collected by the providers of goods and services,” he stressed.