Tobago Chamber head: Government wicked to raise fuel prices

President of the Tobago Chamber of Commerce Diane Hadad has described the government’s decision to increase fuel prices as “wicked and unconscionable.”

In a statement in the House of Representatives on Friday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that from April 19, 2022, the prices of premium gasoline and super gasoline will be adjusted by $1 per litre to $6.75 and $5.97 per litre, respectively, while the price of diesel will be adjusted by 50 cents per litre to $3.91 per litre.

An irate Hadad told Newsday, “I would like to say that anything the government does like that to the people of this country is unconscionable. It is absolutely wicked.”

She argued, even before the onset of the covid19 pandemic just over two years ago, citizens were experiencing hardship.

“After all that the people of this country have been going through, prior to covid19, through covid19 and now to do that (increase fuel prices), says they are really not concerned about the people of the nation.”

Hadad believes the government has done “nothing substantial and meaningful to bring people out of the recoveries that are needed for the financial situation that the communities are in.”

President of the West End United Taxi Association, Tobago, Andy Clinton said he expected the increase in fuel prices.

But he assured the association’s recent $1 fare increase for communities in the western part of the island will remain for the time being.

“The taxi fare remains as it is. If it has to raise, all the presidents of the taxi associations will come together and decide how much the increase will be by. But as it is, it will stay just so until.”

Clinton recalled some taxi drivers had questioned the recent increases.

“Now that gas has gone up, those who were saying that they taking their normal price, I want to see what they will do now. It is already so. We cannot do anything about it.”

During an instalment of Conversations with the Prime Minister on March 8, Dr Rowley said the country could not be insulated from a hike in fuel prices.

But THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine had suggested, then, that any increase in fuel prices should be reconsidered.

“There are several things that we also have to consider in the mix. It’s not just about the fuel we pay for but about also the quality of roads, the cost of vehicles and the amount of taxes we pay on these,” he had said at the post-Executive Council media briefing on March 16.

On that occasion, Augustine said the government must remember that an efficient and reliable public transport service remains an issue throughout the country so travellers will be hit hard with the spike in taxi fares once the government takes this route.