And in other news, the UDP have issued a press release concerning the topic on everyone's mind - fuel prices. According to the opposition, fuel prices have been falling on the international market for 30 consecutive days but has not decreased by even a cent here in Belize.
The release says, quote, "Like the rest of the country, we were shocked and appalled by Briceno's unconscionable admission that his government plans to keep the price of fuel in Belize higher than world market dictates in order to recover bogus government losses." End quote.
The PM said this during an interview last Wednesday, and while it did shock the public to know that the fuel subsidy wasn't free, Briceno insisted that it wasn't a secret.
And he's right - for context, we bring back an interview from March 30th, where he had discussed the government's plan for a fuel cap:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Fuel is going to be a long discussion, but basically what we have been talking when we met with them is that they were.... many people in the industry want to have certainty, they want to be able to cap fuel at a price and keep it at that price so that if the price goes up, we are looking at setting up a fund from where we can get how to be able to pay the taxes and then when the prices go down, we keep it at that price until we can pay off the funds. So we hope that by next week Tuesday. I mean we had a long discussion in cabinet and now we have once again asked my ministry, agriculture, transportation and tourism to sit down and to try to come up with a right formula as to how we are going to be addressing that."
But the UDP isn't accepting this explanation. Their release says, quote, "...explain how it is that Belize has seen over seventy (70) consecutive increases in the price of fuel since this Briceno government was elected in November of 2020 - a trend that started more than a year before the illegal invasion of Ukraine...Belize, under the Briceno administration, is the only country in the world that has registered no fluctuation in fuel prices over the last 20 months." End quote.
They then advise the public not to be fooled by what they call, "the heavily financed government fuel subsidy propaganda campaign," and added, quote, "despite the recent cut in excise duty on two fuel products, this administration is still collecting far more tax dollars on fuel than any government in the history of Belize." End quote.
The UDP is insisting that this subsidy in no way saddled the administration with any significant losses. They then warn that any attempt to burden struggling Belizeans with higher taxes on fuel at this time will be met with civil disobedience.
