Akash Sama­roo

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter is re­main­ing tight-lipped on whether or not fu­el prices will be in­creased.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said that not every­one may be the “hap­pi­est of the hap­py” af­ter he presents the 2025/2026 na­tion­al bud­get.

As he made his way to the Low­er House yes­ter­day, he was asked to clar­i­fy his com­ments and whether that meant the pub­lic should be pre­pared for an un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sion, such as the in­crease in fu­el prices.

But the min­is­ter said, “I think the peo­ple who may be un­hap­py will be un­pa­tri­ot­ic. I think Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens are aware of how dif­fi­cult the cir­cum­stances are that the for­mer gov­ern­ment left us in. And I ex­pect them to see some kind of changes. The per­sons who may be un­hap­py may be those per­sons on the op­po­si­tion side.”

Asked again if he in­tends to touch the fu­el prices, Tan­coo would on­ly say, “No com­ment,” be­fore walk­ing away.

A key change to those prices in re­cent years oc­curred on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2022, when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s gov­ern­ment im­ple­ment­ed its sixth fu­el price in­crease in sev­en years. This ad­just­ment saw prices rise for su­per and pre­mi­um gaso­line, as well as diesel. Pri­or to this, fu­el prices had been in­creased twice in 2022 and had al­so been ad­just­ed in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. There were no in­creas­es in 2020 and 2021.

De­spite pe­ri­od­ic price in­creas­es aimed at re­duc­ing the State’s fis­cal bur­den, the fu­el sub­sidy re­mains in ef­fect.

As of to­day, fu­el prices are $7.75 per litre for su­per gaso­line, $4.41 for diesel, and $4.50 for kerosene.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ques­tioned whether unions oth­er than the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) will ben­e­fit from the planned 10 per cent wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in the up­com­ing fis­cal year.

Tan­coo had said he ex­pects the ne­go­ti­a­tions to com­mence and pos­si­bly con­clude in the next fi­nan­cial year. He said funds would be made in this up­com­ing bud­get.

But Beck­les asked, “I’d like to know whether or not the ne­go­ti­a­tions of what he speaks will be ex­clu­sive to the PSA. Be­cause re­mem­ber there are a num­ber of oth­er unions that are wait­ing pa­tient­ly be­cause, of course, once you have an agree­ment with the PSA, it’s go­ing to im­pact on all the oth­ers.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so asked, “If you’re go­ing to ne­go­ti­ate, what is the pe­ri­od? Be­cause re­mem­ber, there’s an en­tire 10-year pe­ri­od. And if you have a 10-year pe­ri­od, you’re talk­ing any­thing like 10 to 15 bil­lion dol­lars. And the ques­tion will al­ways arise as a coun­try and as a gov­ern­ment, whether we can, you know, at this point in time, af­ford that?”

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s con­cerns about oth­er unions ben­e­fit­ting from the 10 per cent, Tan­coo said “that’s a mat­ter to be dis­cussed.”

Re­gard­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­od, he said, “I have no such idea in mind.” Tan­coo said Beck­les would have to wait un­til the bud­get is read to get her an­swer on how much mon­ey has been set aside for the PSA.