Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has chal­lenged the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to sub­sidise or cov­er the cost of the air­fare for To­bag­o­ni­ans fac­ing chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances. He was re­spond­ing to com­plaints by Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA Far­ley Au­gus­tine about the in­crease in the price of air­plane tick­ets be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“My friend from To­ba­go is say­ing we should not in­crease the price of a tick­et to To­ba­go to $200. It’s the cheap­est flight of its kind in the Caribbean, still. And the re­al cost is about $700. You’re be­ing asked to pay $200,” the Prime Min­is­ter said, tongue in cheek, at the PNM’s Post Bud­get Meet­ing in Mt Hope on Fri­day evening.

“All those who are able to pay should pay the in­creased cost and if there are peo­ple who gen­uine­ly have a case, then give them a sub­sidy or even a free tick­et. If a per­son has to come to Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal be­cause they could on­ly get care there, I’m ask­ing the THA to put some­thing in place where such a per­son can get the ben­e­fit of a free tick­et.

“If you have stu­dents in To­ba­go who are on­ly able to ac­cess what they are study­ing by fre­quent trav­el to St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, give them a sub­sidised tick­et from To­ba­go from the THA, but don’t come and ask me to put the price on the ba­sis of their af­ford­abil­i­ty.”

Dur­ing the 2023 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion last Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced that from Jan­u­ary there will be a $50 in­crease–from $150 to $200–for tick­ets for Caribbean Air­lines flights be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The cost of the jour­ney via sea was al­so raised to $75 for a one-way, stan­dard tick­et, while a pre­mi­um tick­et was in­creased to $150.

Ac­cord­ing to Im­bert, the cur­rent sub­sidy is $100 mil­lion for trans­porta­tion be­tween the is­lands.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter, at the Gov­ern­ment’s post-bud­get meet­ing, al­so dis­cussed the in­crease in fu­el costs, fol­low­ing a de­crease in the fu­el sub­sidy.

The cost of pre­mi­um fu­el in­creased to $7.75 per litre, su­per in­creased to $6.97 per litre, and diesel went up to $4.41 per litre.

Fol­low­ing the in­creas­es, the Gov­ern­ment has faced heavy crit­i­cism from some quar­ters.

“The pop­u­la­tion ought to know that the rea­son we are do­ing that (re­duc­ing sub­si­dies) is be­cause the funds are not avail­able to us as be­fore, for the Gov­ern­ment to pay all those bills and some of those bills, most peo­ple in this coun­try are be­ing asked to make a con­tri­bu­tion…there’s still a heavy el­e­ment of sub­sidy,” Row­ley said.

“We chose to take the sub­sidy down from the fu­el side. What would you have pre­ferred? For us to do what the UNC did and pay the sub­sidy in the tune of $14 bil­lion that we had in that pe­ri­od and cut the sub­sidy for the hos­pi­tal? Would you have pre­ferred to put a price in Mount Hope when you walk through the door? Or San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal? Or tell you, you have to pay school fees in sec­ondary school or pri­ma­ry school?”

The fu­el sub­sidy is ex­pect­ed to cost the State $2.2 bil­lion this year.

Crit­i­cis­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her bud­get re­sponse on Fri­day, the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused the UNC leader of de­liv­er­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion full of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and lies.

“They are all about elec­tion and of­fice be­cause they are all about them­selves…” he added. The UNC and good news about Trinidad and To­ba­go do not go good to­geth­er, the PM said.

“There are some things that don’t mix, you know. Oil and wa­ter in a bot­tle, they start to sep­a­rate, they don’t mix. A bull and a red flag don’t go to­geth­er. A pothound in a yard and the vis­i­tor com­ing in and the pothound say you come to eat my food, they don’t go to­geth­er. Vam­pires and sil­ver cross­es don’t go to­geth­er.”

Dr Row­ley said de­spite what was be­ing said by the Op­po­si­tion and some econ­o­mists about the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances, things have im­proved and are start­ing to look up.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­por­tance of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, he said oil and gas re­mains the coun­try’s best bet at en­sur­ing eco­nom­ic well-be­ing.