The Prime Minister has been saying it for weeks and tonight we've seen the figures and can confirm that the government is losing millions of dollars monthly in tax revenue to absorb some of the shock of soaring fuel prices.
We've received the fuel price breakdown for this year from the Financial Secretary and it shows that the landed cost to import fuel into Belize has skyrocketed.
In January, a gallon of Regular gasoline cost four-dollars and sixty-two cents to bring to our ports. This week, that price more than doubled to a staggering nine-dollars and thirty-nine cents. Landed costs for Diesel saw an equally punishing spike, jumping from five-forty-four to over ten dollars a gallon.
To keep prices from getting close to the 16 dollar mark, the state has slashed its tax take. Taxes on Premium were cut by one-dollar and fourteen cents a gallon, and Diesel taxes were slashed by one-dollar and sixteen cents.
Financial Secretary Joe Waight told us that these tax cuts are costing the government several million dollars every month.
Of course, for consumers that hardly matters because despite government's measures, the current pump price is still punishingly high.
The Financial Secretary warns that we haven't seen the end of it, noting that while oil prices go up like a rocket, they come down slowly, like a parachute.
