Last week, we showed you the cries of the tour operators that the current high gas prices are hurting their bottom lines in a big way.
As we told you, Premium broke the 12-dollar mark last week, joining the stiff price of regular at $11.82 per gallon. So, with increasing grumbling about the crushing cost of fuel, Cabinet sent out a statement demonstrating a firm grasp of the obvious, saying they too are taking note of the rising cost of fuel. They boasted - emptily - that a team has been assembled to, quote, "look at all possible mitigation measures", end quote. Nice!
So, was the Cabinet attempting to dodge concerns about fuel prices? Or, are they serious about taking action as the gas tax policymakers? That's what the press asked Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler, who we caught at another event today.
He said in the Cabinet Meetings, he makes it a practice to point out all price increases which Belizean consumers must contend with:
Hon. Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations
"My colleagues can tell you that every week I take another product to cabinet and I stick it in front of my mic and I say this has gone up by this much, and so much so that triggered off an assessment done by bureau of standards. I know you say that they don't have the resources, but they did a thorough review of certain items and they are coming up with a plan to address this issue, because it is a combination of global prices, the supply chain has been affected by covid and other issues, but some of the local retailers are also increasing and price gouging and we know that and so the bureau of standards is working on a program right now to address this, whether if we look seriously - I don't believe too much in price controls, but in this situation we can look at putting price controls for certain food items. Again, I know the cost of fuel is crushing right now. Its $12 or something like that and that is serious problem for any business in the productive sector. It is crucial that we address this in a reasonable way, but a lot of it is outside of our hard. In fact, if you go back and look at what also caused the great recession in 2007/08, you will see that the high fuel prices also aided to the housing meltdown and I know it is crushing right now for all of us to pay $12 a gallon."
