The state-run consumer watchdog body, the Consumers Affairs Commission (CAC), has stopped just short of accusing book stores of price-gouging on textbooks, but said it was at a loss as to why prices had skyrocketed so dramatically this year.

Parents shopping for textbooks for the new school year, now only three weeks away, have been hard-pressed to find any textbook priced under $500 for students at the secondary level.

“The argument used last year that prices were driven by the high cost of foreign exchange is not valid this year. The English pound is actually lower this year than what it was last year, so we expect the prices to be lower as well,” complained Raymond Price, the CAC’s communication manager.

Price told the Observer that the CAC had made its own contacts with printers overseas, and based on the prices quoted, it determined that if books were sold at half the price at which many were being sold, stores would still be guaranteed a 100 per cent profit.

An Observer survey of book prices last week revealed startling disparities. In at least one instance, a literature text at one shop in the Springs Plaza in Half-Way-Tree sold for almost 100 per cent more at another store located less than 100 metres away. In other instances, the newspaper found that price levels were generally the same, very high, with a $20 or $30 difference being the best available.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles, which is the prescribed literature text for 2006, and which is being used by the current 10th graders who will sit the exam that year, cost $496 at Kingston Bookshop and $960 at Sangster’s in the same plaza.

“Everybody want 200 and 300 per cent profit. Wha wi fi do!” blurted out one shopper who gave her name as Michelle Young.

Young, who was shopping for books for her fraternal twins going to fourth form, said she would have to pay a total of $37,000 for books, in addition to the $8,500 each for their participation in the book rental programme.

But secondary texts are not the only ones flying out of the reach of most parents.

Carole Marshall’s journey from St Catherine to book stores in uptown and downtown Kingston for her five year-old son who is going to infant school, ended in disappointment when she saw the prices.

“Dem people tink sey people a mek money. Weh people must get money from an no work nuh deh? Look yah, is $619 fi a infant school pickney book,” Marshall hissed, pointing to the 16-page I can read from the Happy Venture Series.

At Sangster’s in The Springs, the other books in the series, notably Play time, Our Friend and Fluff and Nip all sold for $619. The Space Age Reader, which depicts two black children (Pam and Tim) on the front cover, were the only two grade one texts under $500.

The Cac’s Price said he was at a loss as to why so many of the books were so expensive. He said concessions were given to buyers based on the volume bought, which significantly reduced the unit price of a book when bought in hundreds, instead of dozens.

“Prices in the Kingston Metropolitan Region were beyond anything we expected even when we took all the parameters into perspective, and we did not even programme the fact that purchasers could get them on concession, consignment or credit,” he insisted.

But Price hailed two St Catherine book stores which offered the best prices based on preliminary findings of the CAC.

“We have found the Angels Book and Variety Store at Angels Estate in St Catherine and Biggs Book Store in Linstead as two stores having the best prices,” he said.

Rohan Rose, owner/operator of Biggs Book Store with branches in Linstead, Ewarton and St John’s Road in Spanish Town, said he was able to offer good prices to his customers because he took a smaller cut in profit.

“We buy the books in bulk from Kingston Bookshop and we get a 25 per cent discount. I give the consumers a further 10 per cent discount, and I take a 15 per cent profit,” he told the Observer.

He admitted that some of his competitors had accused him of under-pricing and that there had been “grumblings that I was mashing up the business”.

Jennifer Hibbert was happy for the information about the Angels Estate and Biggs Book stores, saying she was hopeful that the $16,500 for books for her 14-year-old daughter Shani would be significantly reduced. She said only two of the seven history books prescribed were on rental and she would have to cough up $6,000 for the other five.

One French text on the list cost $2,200. She will also have to face the additional cost for Shani’s participation in the book rental programme. But Hibbert is encouraged by the fact that her teenage daughter had secured 10 of 13 books for the subjects she did last school year, and she wanted her to have all her textbooks.

At the Angels Book and Variety Store, manager Andrew White said the store had been open for only two months, but that its mission was to offer competitive pricing and excellent customer service.

“We are selling at a profit,” he said, when asked if he was operating at a loss by selling at lower prices.

Hoping to assist consumers to shop around for the best prices available, the CAC this year again conducted a study of prices, its most comprehensive to date, Price said. The findings were released last Wednesday.

“We have evaluated prices in all parishes, and in some instances every book shop in some parishes have been done. So this time we have an even better picture of the prices islandwide,” Price disclosed.

He also said that the Book Industry Association of Jamaica, which last year had defended the high prices, this year declined to collaborate on the survey of prices.