Cheap oil for CARICOM

Trinidad and Tobago will be giving its Caricom partners cheaper oil prices, but only for fuel which is to be used for electricity generation. This was announced by Prime Minister Patrick Manning yesterday at the post-Cabinet news briefing at Whitehall.

Manning said a proposal was being developed along this lines, which is to come before the Energy Committee on Tuesday. Manning said it would mean that government would be foregoing some revenue. The plan involves putting a cap on gas oil and fuel oil prices, which have risen astronomically. The Prime Minister said Trinidad and Tobago could not afford to give the same relief for gasoline for cars and for gas prices in general. In explaining the rationale for the decision, Manning said many of the Caricom countries see themselves as facing “economic destruction” if oil prices stay at the current levels for any length of time.

Manning said one also had to recognise that Trinidad and Tobago was the largest market in Caricom, and Caricom was this country’s second largest market (United States being the first). He said the balance of trade in favour of Trinidad and Tobago was “huge” and “therefore many of the countries in the Caricom region were subscribing to the view that some form of recycling of the resources ought to take place to bring about some balance”. Manning said many of the Caricom countries could not compete with industries in Trinidad and Tobago. He said therefore it is left to Government intervention to address this situation. He said a Caricom team is looking at a variety of options, but in the interim, the Trinidad and Tobago government “unilaterally” decided to provide the relief in the form of lower oil prices.

Manning noted that in the oil boom days, Trinidad and Tobago provided liberal assistance to its Caricom partners. He said this help was viewed negatively by the beneficiaries who looked upon TT as having imperialistic designs.  The Prime Minister said TT had learned from those errors and it was determined to avoid them.