Fuel prices in Barbados are still being impacted by turbulence in the international market, says Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn.
He, however, said Government was still monitoring the situation.
“Notwithstanding that, globally, there may be some decline, the reality is that we’ve seen a lot of turbulence within the international trade market in the last few months.
Therefore, the extent to which our acquisition of fuel and oil and where they come from will be impacted in part by some of that.
“However, we have been focused on how to get the best value and cleaner fuels into the country,” Straughn said.
He made those comments yesterday during a press conference at Parliament.
Electricity ease
Last week, it was announced that Barbadians would be paying less for electricity this month, but more at the pump. While the fuel clause adjustment (FCA) that goes into computing electricity bills dropped to the lowest level in almost four years, petroleum prices rose.
For May, the FCA is listed at 31.7588 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), a decline of 4.8082 cents from the April figure (36.5670) and the lowest since June 2021 when it was 29.9832, the last time it fell below 30 cents.
However, the Ministry of Energy announced on Thursday that the price of gasoline increased by six cents to $3.95 per litre and diesel by seven cents to $3.40. Kerosene oil remained unchanged at $1.26 per litre.
Democratic Labour Party spokesperson on energy, Senator Ryan Walters, said he was not surprised and called it a “gross injustice to Barbadians”.
Walters said there were two adjustments since Christmas, both increases, despite a global decline in the price of oil ranging from 8.5 to ten per cent between January and April this year.
Concerns
Some Barbadian motorists expressed their concerns about fuel prices to the DAILY NATION yesterday.
While reiterating that there was still volatility, Straughn said the Government continued to advocate and offer tax breaks on electric vehicles.
“The policy of the Government is ‘let us move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can’, in order to ensure that what happens outside does not necessarily cause us to be dislocated in any significant way.
“The Government has had a very aggressive policy in encouraging people to move away from diesel and gasoline to hybrids as well as electric vehicles.
“We’ve seen a lot of people who have made that personal decision to transition and therefore, I think we have put other measures in place to ease the cost of living,” he added. (TG)
