INDUSTRY Minister Karl Samuda says the Government is now exploring ways to cut food prices.

He made the announcement during a meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament on Wednesday night.

"I am now pursuing a strategy that, if successful, would result in a change that would surprise many," he said. Samuda, however, did not disclose much detail about his new strategy.

In the meantime, he says the Government will be expanding the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH).

According to Samuda, 115,000 persons will be added to the programme and the money allocated to each individual will be increased.

"The whole idea is not to give across-the-board subsidy or support because, when you do that, those who need it the most do not benefit," he told The Gleaner/ Power 106 News Centre yesterday.

$800-million bill

According to Samuda, this initiative will cost the Government some $800 million per year.

During Wednesday night's sitting of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller made an impassioned plea for Samuda to devise a programme to ease the burden on the working poor, in light of rising food prices.

"I am asking if you could just look at what else could be done so that the burden on the working poor and on the most vulnerable would not be as painful," Simpson Miller said.

The Government introduced a $500-million support programme in January after food prices threatened to go skyward as a result of changing conditions on the world market. The programme expired at the end of March.

Under the first price-support programme, the money was paid over to major producers and distributors of certain food items, a move criticised by the Opposition.

The People's National Party had said the money should have been made available through PATH, so the most vulnerable would benefit.