18 Jun 2008

American Samoa investigates rice shortages

3:33 pm on 18 June 2008

American Samoa has established a panel to investigate the cause of a shortage of rice.

This comes as the global price of rice has risen to a 20-year high due to strong demand and bad weather.

Our correspondent, Monica Miller, reports there's grave concern among government officials as local wholesalers have been out of rice for the past two to three weeks.

"The governor is taking this move because of complaints about what some people believe to be price gouging as well as some store owners hoarding the available rice supplies and then selling them off at a lot higher prices and that there's also a rice shortage. It's been short for the last two to three weeks. Some wholesalers have got new shipments on the dock, while others say it's not going to arrive until a week's time."

Monica Miller