MP Jamale Pringle Demands Full Fuel-Price Breakdown as Gasoline Hits $17.99

Leader of the Opposition Jamale Pringle is demanding that the Gaston Browne administration and the West Indies Oil Company (WIOC) publish a full, line-by-line breakdown of how fuel is priced in Antigua and Barbuda, after gasoline climbed to EC$17.99 per gallon. Its second increase in just over a month.

Speaking on Observer Radio's Voice of the People with host Adrian Williams on Thursday, the United Progressive Party (UPP) leader said the public is being asked to absorb punishing increases without ever seeing the figures behind them.

"I believe the way forward is for WIOC and the government to be transparent. Publish these figures, so there's no ifs or speculation as it relates to what is happening," MP Pringle declared. "Publish them, give the breakdown, let the people see exactly what is happening."

Gasoline rose by EC$1.49 per gallon to $17.99 on October 2 on the instructions of the Ministry of Finance, following a EC$2.00 jump on September 1 that took the price from $14.50 to $16.50, a cumulative increase of EC$3.49 in barely five weeks, as reported by the Daily Observer. Ultra-low sulphur diesel stands at EC$18.83 per gallon.

Previous Figures

During the interview MP Pringle read a breakdown of the pump price dating from when gasoline sold at $16.50 per gallon:

• International purchase price: $11.03

• Freight, insurance and procurement: 15 cents

• Import levy: 10 cents

• Government Consumption Tax: $3.13

• WIOC importer's margin: 10 cents

• WIOC terminal cost: 49 cents

• WIOC wholesaler's margin: 10 cents

• Other charges: 31 cents

• Inland transportation: 10 cents

• Service station dealer's margin: $1.08

"That is the breakdown, and that gives the total of $16.50," he said. "What is necessary now, and what we are asking for, is for them to publish the new breakdown."

The figures put the government's consumption tax at nearly three times the margin earned by the service station dealers, a point the dealers themselves have made in their public dispute with the Prime Minister over their shrinking margins.

When Williams asked whether the Opposition Leader knows what WIOC is paying for fuel today, at the new $17.99 price, MP Pringle's answer was blunt: "No."

"Is this supposed to be a secret?" the host pressed — a question MP Pringle said only the government can answer.

The WIOC Question

MP Pringle also declined to rule out a conflict of interest at the heart of the country's fuel supply chain, noting the government's dominant stake in the oil company whose terminal costs and margins are baked into every gallon sold.

"It's something that we cannot rule out, because government is the greatest shareholder in WIOC," he said, when asked whether vested interests could be blunting the administration's appetite for cheaper alternatives.

Asked about the role of Housing Minister Maria Browne, the Prime Minister's wife, at WIOC, MP Pringle responded: "Well, I don't really know what her role is. I think, from my recollection and what I heard, she is a board member. But again, it's a company, and when you have a company, the board is to ensure that the entity is properly run."

He argued that the same sacrifice being demanded of consumers and dealers must apply to the state oil company and its shareholders: "Just as how the people and the gas station operators are asked to hold on their profit, I'm also asking for the government and the shareholders of WIOC to hold on their profit and help to pass on some of their profit to the people of Antigua and Barbuda."

MP Pringle's transparency demand echoes the call of the service station operators, who in an open letter to Prime Minister Gaston Browne complained of unanswered correspondence since March and accused the government of correcting nothing while "placing a disproportionate share of the burden" on them.

He closed the programme with the same demand he opened with: "All I'm asking of the Gaston Browne administration is to publish what we're paying for the fuel now and give a breakdown of the charges that exist today, based on that increase on gasoline, and on diesel."