The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip Davis said the government is still weighing intervention to ease rising gas prices, while looking to competition legislation in a new term as a longer-term solution.

His comments came as major retailers increased fuel prices, with officials pointing to global oil market pressures driven by conflict in the Middle East and supply chain disruptions.

“We are going to look again to see how we can intervene,” Mr Davis said. “But we have to again, balance that with any loss, how that loss may be made up when we intervene.”

Mr Davis said any effort to reduce taxes on fuel would require replacing lost government revenue.

“First of all, whenever you talk about tax relief from a legislative point of view, you have to also look at how you replace. That's a loss of income for the country,” Mr Davis said.

He added that new legislation aimed at addressing cost pressures is not likely in the immediate term, with Parliament prorogued, but said competition legislation is being prepared.

“We have on our drawing boards as we speak, introducing what they call a competition legislation to ensure that we're able to check the points of value chain that produces the cost at the end of the day to the retailer to see whether there is any way we can break up what I call any monopoly along that line,” he said. “So competition legislation is on the agenda, and that's what we're looking forward to in the new term.”

He drew a distinction between government-controlled measures like the VAT reduction, which takes effect today and global fuel prices.

“That’s two different strain of pressure,” he said. “Gas prices, no doubt, will have some impact on costs, but in this instance, we're talking about costs that we could control,” he said. “As I indicated, what we can do, we will do. We have control over VAT and taxes. We are creating savings for the Bahamian people. We expect that that will be provided to them.”

Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper, meanwhile, stressed in a separate interview that global factors are driving the increase in fuel prices.

“You would be aware that many of the cost-of-living type issues that we are confronted with are not of our making,” he said. “They are external to The Bahamas, as is the case with the increase in oil prices. Given the state of the world, the war in the Middle East, ongoing tensions, disruption of supply chain, you have the result of higher oil prices.”