The Tribune

ALREADY PUBLISHED

EDITOR, The Tribune

Mr Leslie Miller, MP (PLP), Executive Chairman of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation, recently announced that savings from reduced oil prices will not be passed on to consumers.

While one understands it takes a while for lower prices on the international market to reach pumps here, it’s a tad duplicitous by the government not to pass savings on while holding local oil companies and stations to price control limits.

When gas was $3.80 per gallon recently, government was getting some $1.83 per gallon in taxes while the station owner’s are held to $0.44 and the distributors to $0.33 respectively.

Diesel is about the same price as gasoline so one imagines similar taxes accrue to government there as well.

Consumers have been charged a high surcharge for years, and this was recently increased as a result of generator failures - not to mention the lost household equipment as a result of power cuts and an unstable service - and now taxpayers will not benefit from cost savings to BEC as a result of their inability to collect receivables? This is preposterous.

When Mr Miller was in charge of the Ministry of Consumer affairs he continually demonised oil companies and their dealers suggesting their profit margins were too high. So how is government allowed to get away with this truly detrimental behaviour?

Are we tax tax slaves to government?

Reductio ad absurdum ...

Rick Lowe

November 2 2014