Email

Print

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We're going to be in for a difficult time in terms of fuel prices. Because the acquisition costs, the global price of oil is increasing at a rate that, for small countries such as ours, is alarming."

"So, when prices to the consumer go up in this country, it is as a result of factors completely beyond our control. We have not raised our tax take on the sale of fuel for the last two years or so. And, there's no way - I need to make clear - that we can reduce our tax take. I believe financial secretary correct me if I'm wrong but for every ten cents that we pull back we give up we would lose two or 3 million dollars from the budget. But when we said in the press release that was issued that we're working with the importers to try to moderate the impact as much as possible that wasn't just glib or pious rhetoric."

"As a consequence of that exercise and those discussions the prices that went up last night did not go by nearly as much as had been first proposed by PUMA."

"But we have worked on and continue to work on an arrangement with PUMA by which, when there is a particularly steep increase attendant on any single shipment, we can say to the importer, "No don't pass through all of that increased additional cost to the consumer all at once; absorb some of that increase we say to the importer and we will allow you to recover it over a period of time."

"We 're still going to have to bear the burden of the increased acquisition cost, but we try to find a way to spread it out so that the shock can be lessened."

"The government is making every effort to try to finesse this thing as much as possible so that the increases are not going to be as traumatic as they otherwise could be."