A group of Belize City tour operators plan to protest tomorrow against ever - rising gas prices. As we reported, the price for premium gas was changed last night, and now, you'll have to pay 12 dollars and 11 cents for a gallon at your selected gas station.
It's among a series of fuel prices increases that have taken place under the Briceno Government. And, if you ask Prime Minister Briceno about it, his administration can't do anything about it at this time, because of soaring world oil prices.
But, that's quite a different message from the one he had several years ago, back when his party was in Opposition.
We went digging into our archives for comparison on his latest verbal acrobatics on high fuel prices. Daniel Ortiz has that story:
Back when his party was in Opposition, Prime Minister John Briceno often bearded the Barrow Administration for presiding over some savage fuel prices.
In fact, in 2017, we even encountered him and other prominent members of his now government protesting with COLA and their supporters against high gas prices.
File: October 5, 2017
Hon. John Briceno - Protester
"We are here as citizens of this country. A call was made out inviting all citizens to come out to speak out or to show displeasure to the government of Belize over the high cost of fuel."
"We felt that it is important for us to show as a citizen that we are totally and completely 100% dissatisfied in the high cost of fuel."
On that same day, Briceno was forcefully insisting that the former government's tax take on fuel needed to be significantly reduced.
File: October 5, 2017
Hon. John Briceno - Leader of the Opposition
"He needs to reduce the tax by at least $2 so that we can keep the price of fuel under $10. At the very least that is what he needs to do. But I will not believe him until I see that he has taken corrective action. This is unsustainable; this is unacceptable because the burden that he is putting on the Belizean people is just way too much. We are at a breaking point and he needs to act and he needs to act as soon as possible."
"The government is overtaxing the Belizean people on fuel."
Then,8 months later - in June 2018, Briceno as Leader of the Opposition - presented argued convincingly that the high fuel prices were driving up the cost of doing business for the entire private sector.
File: June 6, 2018
Hon. John Briceno - Leader of the Opposition
"The cost of basic goods continues to rise due to the increase in the cost of fuel. With each new shipment comes another increase and the prime minister keeps collecting - or should I say he keeps sucking more and more from our pockets in taxes on fuel. Since the beginning of the year premium gasoline has gone up by 60 cents, regular gasoline up by 95 cents, and diesel by 1 dollar and 13 cents. On diesel alone, which is of vital importance to the productive sector government is collecting 4 dollars and 32 cents of the 10 dollars and 63 cents per gallon. That amounts to more than 40 percent of the cost of fuel going to the government by way of taxes or 40 cents out of every dollar we spend at the pump is going straight to the government for taxes. Government can and should immediately reduce the tax on all fuel. How can our productive sector grow when an important cost of production; fuel, continues to rise?"
That was then… And now, since he is the one in the driver's seat, and he can implement the kind of changes he was calling for several years ago, Mr. Briceno says that his administration's hands are tied.
posted (October 13, 2021)
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I want to assure you that that is certainly the plan of the government to bring it down. But at the moment, two things that I want to point out, one is that the price of oil continues to go up, a few weeks ago it was at $15 and now it is at $90, last week it was at $90 and we have no control over that and we import fuel so it is the taxes that we have for fuel also plays an important role in the revenues of the government and we are not at the growth rate that we want and the economy has not recovered at the point we want, so we cannot afford to be able to cut the tax on fuel but the goal is for us to be able to cap the price of diesel at no more than $9 a gallon, that's what we promised, and we want to live by it just like what we said that we want to try to get as close as possible to a living wage by increasing the minimum wage to $5 but we can't do it right now."
He made those comments 2 weeks ago, and since then, the price of Regular Gasoline has gone up, and now, the price of premium has broken the 12 dollar mark.
