Fuel Prices Should Start to See a Slight Decrease

Belizeans should be noticing a drop in fuel prices in the weeks to come. Fuel prices on the global market have seen a decrease, but Belize has not been able to see a reflection of that at the gas pumps. The Government of Belize says that it is still trying to recuperate the contingency fund that was tapped into when Russia launched its illegal war in Ukraine which caused global oil prices to soar. The Briceno Administration has been preventing the prices of regular and diesel to take a significant jump by putting a cap on the tax which has caused the government to lose money. According to Prime Minister John Briceno, the fund has not yet been replenished; however, his administration is looking to begin reducing the prices while still being able to replenish the tax monies that were lost. 

John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize: “All Belizeans want relief including myself but as I said earlier on we explained that what we will do is we are going to hold down the taxes or reduce the taxes to try to keep the fuel steady because fuel would have gone to about $15 or more but I did say that once the prices start to go down we want to hold the price a little bit longer to try to recuperate some of the taxes because then if we don’t have the taxes then we can’t do the work of the people are asking for. And so we are trying to recoup that but what we’ve been talking in the Ministry of Finance is probably recoup the losses over a longer period so right now we are working on that to see how we can start to reduce and I think we did just reduce the prices a little bit. We can’t reduce it as fast as other countries because for instance when we buy a million gallons of diesel the United States is buying 100 million so obviously the prices that they get is much better than the prices that we get so we need to take that into consideration. We are a small player so we have to take the prices that they give us.”