Every vehicle owner, bus operator, tour guide, and water taxi proprietor is anxiously awaiting the day when fuel prices start to decrease. The high cost of fuel has put a strain on every Belizean, even those who don't drive, since it has forced the price of other basic commodities to increase as well.
Well, the light is at the end of the tunnel - but the tunnel isn't a short one. And today, Prime Minister Briceno - who just returned to the country on Saturday after three weeks of traveling - told us that even when the world prices start falling, Belize's prices may remain high. That's because the government is losing revenue from the fuel subsidies they are providing, and they need to recover from that loss.
Here's how he explained it:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We have to hold it on as long as we possibly can. I believe the price of fuel, the price of crude oil, is starting to go down in the world market, I think yesterday it was at 95US dollars a barrel, with that we're expecting that the price will start to go down slowly. The idea, as I mentioned earlier, is to hold it at a price where it is right now and as the acquisition cost of fuel goes down, you still want to hold it a bit to be able to recoup some of the tax dollars that we lost because at the end of the day, we do need the revenues to be able to provide the services to the Belizean people."
"We said from the beginning, I've said it many times that the idea was the set up from Central Bank so as we reduce the tax, we could try to replace it, we are not doing that right now, but as the prices go down, we can keep it there to try to get back some of it, not all of it, some of it, then start to work on brining down the price of fuel."
"The good news is that we've been talking through Caricom to Venezuela and to the United States about asking the United States to ease up some of the restrictions with Venezuela and that we may have the opportunity to get the Petrocaribe program going once again. Maybe it may not be as generous as it was before but we're still looking at maybe paying 70 cents on the dollar or something like that. But that by itself is going to be a big help should we be able to convince the Americans to ease up on the restrictions that they have against Venezuela."
