KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many peo­ple are up in arms at yet an­oth­er in­crease in fu­el prices, pe­tro­le­um deal­ers say peo­ple should ad­just their bud­gets, as it was in­evitable.

Car­pool­ing and the use of pub­lic trans­porta­tion were among the ad­just­ments Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Derek Joseph hopes to see peo­ple mak­ing fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2023 Bud­get yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment’s im­me­di­ate in­crease of Pre­mi­um and Su­per gaso­line by $1 and diesel by 50 cents. The new prices are $7.75 per litre for Pre­mi­um gaso­line, $6.97 per litre for Su­per gaso­line and $4.41 per litre of diesel.

Im­bert said el­e­vat­ed oil and gas prices were re­spon­si­ble for the in­crease and the Gov­ern­ment found it un­pro­duc­tive to spend more than $2 bil­lion sub­sid­ing fu­el. He said it would be bet­ter if the Gov­ern­ment spent that mon­ey on so­cial grants, ed­u­ca­tion, health, jobs and trans­porta­tion.

While peo­ple told Guardian Me­dia that an­oth­er in­crease in the cost of liv­ing would raise crime and pover­ty lev­els, Joseph be­lieves an­oth­er fu­el price in­crease was in­evitable, say­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had to re­act to in­creas­ing in­ter­na­tion­al prices.

Motorists wait in line to fill their gas tanks at the NP gas station at the corner of King Street and Eastern Main Road, Arima, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Joseph said the Gov­ern­ment had not in­creased ac­cord­ing to glob­al prices over the years. He said a $1 in­crease in gas prices was mod­est com­pared to price hikes world­wide.

“It now has reached a point where it has af­fect­ed the sub­sidy in such a man­ner that the sub­sidy is so high that they would have had no choice but to make a de­ci­sion,” Joseph said.

He said some mo­torists might now use pub­lic trans­porta­tion in­stead of dri­ving every­where to counter the fu­el in­crease. There­fore, he be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment should start look­ing at ad­di­tion­al means of im­prov­ing pub­lic trans­port.

“In the first in­stance, peo­ple might stay home a bit or move around less, but even­tu­al­ly, when they make that fi­nan­cial ad­just­ment, they might spend less on some­thing else.”

Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Robindranath Narayns­ingh felt Im­bert took his time to ex­plain the fu­el sub­sidy. He said T&T was a price tak­er as the world mar­ket dic­tates the fu­el costs. Based on the laws of de­mand and sup­ply and what is hap­pen­ing world­wide, Narayns­ingh feels the pop­u­la­tion should be thank­ful that it is not as heavy a bur­den as oth­er coun­tries are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing right now.

“He (Im­bert) ex­plained what he would do: how he will re­pair roads and pro­vide med­i­cine for the pop­u­la­tion. He took his time and spoke of the val­ue chain of the oil and the ex-re­fin­ery price and every­thing. He was at pains to do this,” Narayns­ingh said.

Naraysingh added that he hopes peo­ple dri­ve less and car­pool more and find ways of help­ing each oth­er fac­ing a com­mon sit­u­a­tion.

“We have to treat each oth­er with a lit­tle more kind­ness be­cause we all dri­ve on the roads re­gard­less of who you are, so we have to car­pool and try to make things dri­ve less, and it will de­crease rev­enue for deal­ers, but as a so­ci­ety, we have to be our broth­er’s keep­er,” he said.