"Families Are Suffering" MP Jamale Pringle Urges Three-Month Consumption Tax Reduction

Opposition Leader MP Jamale Pringle says the government should temporarily reduce its EC$3.13-per-gallon consumption tax on fuel for at least three months to cushion consumers from the latest round of price increases, and he has dismissed Cabinet's response to this week's fuel crisis, a plan to build more gas stations, as an answer to a question nobody asked.

MP Pringle was speaking on Observer Radio's Voice of the People on Thursday, a day after service station dealers shut their pumps in a margin dispute with the government, triggering hours-long queues that stretched down Friars Hill Road. The dealers, who say their margins have shrunk from 8 percent in March to roughly 6.38 percent today, earn a fixed $1.08 per gallon on gasoline and 95 cents on diesel regardless of how high the pump price climbs.

"Certainly, it's alarming for me," MP Pringle said of Wednesday's scenes. "While I appreciate it's an international situation, I believe every international situation has national effect. That is where the government of that country steps in."

"Tell Me How Building Two, Three other Gas Stations Helps"

Cabinet's reaction to the shutdown was to advise WIOC, in which the government holds the controlling stake, to pursue three additional service stations at strategic locations across the country. MP Pringle's response was scathing.

"I heard, in response to what was said by the dealers, the PM said: 'We're going to build more gas stations. Cabinet agreed that we're going to build more gas stations.' Now, tell me, how building two, three other gas stations improve the economic situation on the people of Antigua and Barbuda?" he asked.

"What we are seeing from this Gaston Browne administration is a constant boasting of how economically stable we are, how things are so good, how prudently they're managing the economy. But as soon as there's an increase, it is passed on to the people who [are] already stretched thin," he said. "Where is the heart of the Gaston Browne administration?"

He accused the Prime Minister of casting the dealers as villains rather than seriously negotiating: "The prime minister now [is] trying to let it seem as if the gas station operators are trying to put more hardship on the people of Antigua and Barbuda, when realistically we're not seeing that type of collaboration where everybody can give a little in the interest of easing the squeeze on the citizens of Antigua and Barbuda."

The dealers have levelled a similar charge. In their open letter to Prime Minister Gaston Browne, published this week, the operators said letters sent in March and again on September 15 have gone unanswered, and asked pointedly: "When is a good time for fairness?" They have also warned that rising card-processing fees now see the banks earning more per gallon than the stations themselves.

MP Pringle's Prescription: Everybody Gives a Little

The UPP leader's alternative is a negotiated, time-bound package of relief anchored by a cut to the consumption tax, the single largest government take in the fuel price build-up.

"Had we been in office, this is something that we would certainly consider: one, look at the consumption tax… reduce it over a period of three months, just to cushion this increase, while we bring all stakeholders together," he said. "When I say stakeholders, I mean APUA, the gas station owners, the public, the economists — all these people into a stakeholders' meeting — and the single most important thing is to see how we can come out of this situation with a win-win. The people win, the business owners win, and the government wins."

"It calls for stable minds and competent negotiators to sit down and negotiate," he added. "The dealers give a little, the government give a little. That is how you solve a situation like this to ease the squeeze."

MP Pringle acknowledged that every party to the dispute has its own interests: "The fact remains that they [the dealers] are going to look for their benefit. The government is going to look for their share, and the people — they are looking for relief."

But he was emphatic about where the burden must not fall. "It cannot be just pass it on to the people. They just suffered from the several increases in the fuel variation," he said, referencing APUA's hike of its fuel variation charge to 88 cents per kilowatt-hour, which pushed October electricity bills higher. "We cannot burden the people of Antigua and Barbuda with any further increase. They are already stretched. I'm not asking. You know, on a daily basis I get the phone calls. I sit in my office. I dialogue with them. I'm on the street with them. It's difficult. Families are suffering."

The squeeze is measurable: annual inflation hit 7 percent in September, up from 5.5 percent in August, with transport costs up 12 percent year-on-year — figures compiled before October's EC$1.49 gasoline increase took effect.

MP Pringle also pointed to the UPP's own record and platform, saying his party had pledged to peg fuel prices to the international market: "We would have pegged the rate of fuel to the international market. So, when it goes up, you see it, and when it goes down, the savings [are] passed on to the people."

Cabinet has reportedly accepted that the dealers deserve an increase but intends to delay it until later in the year, citing unstable international prices, with the Financial Secretary instructed to meet the operators.

For MP Pringle, that is not a plan: "Give the people of Antigua and Barbuda some relief, and that is all my request here, from the people to the government."