Govt’s $1 Gas Reduction Will Not Reduce Hardship, Amid Stagnant Wages and Rising Food Costs

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Govt’s $1 Gas Reduction Will Not Reduce Hardship, Amid Stagnant Wages and Rising Food Costs
The ABLP Administration has failed to tackle the rising cost of living in a meaningful way. The unrelenting rise in the cost of goods and services, coupled with stagnant wages, has eaten into the wallets of citizens and residents in Antigua and Barbuda, leaving them with significantly reduced spending power.
Inflation in the cost of food, in particular, which is a major area of expenditure for families, continues to rise unchecked, following June’s 10.3% increase. According to the latest Consumer Price Index, for July 2022, the price of food rose 10.8%, with increases in all nine sub-categories, including the index for Meat and Meat Products which rose 19.0%.
Given these economically challenging  circumstances, a mere $1 drop in the price of gasoline, announced by the ABLP administration, is meaningless in improving “people’s standard of living.”  Notably, the price of gasoline today is $3 more expensive than before the Ukraine War, although average global oil prices have since fallen below the pre-war levels.
The paltry $1 per gallon reduction in the gas price would amount to just $20 in monthly savings, for a motorist who purchases 20 gallons. For citizens and residents contending with the meteoric rise in the cost of goods and services, this reduction has little impact on the hardships that they face.
The UPP maintains that some of the best ways to bring meaningful relief to the people include:
1. The reduction of customs duties on certain essential foods to reduce the price of food on store shelves;
2. The reduction of customs duties on building materials not produced within Caricom countries;
3. Raising of the Minimum Wage to a National Living Wage, in line with inflation;
4. Raising Government Wages to a fair level, in line with inflation.
“Such sweeping cost of living adjustments would likely generate household gains of $100s of dollars in monthly spending power.,” says Harold Lovell, Political Leader of the United Progressive Party. He continues, “This would also help to offset the impact of the high gas prices on consumers’ wallets and increase the pace of the country’s sluggish economic recovery.”
ENDS

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24 COMMENTS

  1. Gaston Browne continues to insult the people of this country.

    We know that the REAL relief will come by tackling the out of control prices of food and raising wages. The $1 off gas, which is still $3 more expensive than before the war, is a joke.

    However the biggest problem remains the unemployment crisis!

    Instead of chatting BS every Saturday Gaston needs to urgently address the 26 failed projects which cost us 15 billion in investment and over 7000 jobs:

    1. Sunny Hill Project (Resort in Falmouth/Bethesda area)
    2. Beaches Resort by Sandals Resorts
    3. Half Moon Bay Hotel
    4. Morris Bay / Callaloo Cay Project
    5. Hotel Resort on Pelican Island and Residences on Maiden Island
    6. Labahia Hotel Resort & Condominiums (Marble Hill Business Hotel) by WIOC
    7. Long Bay Hotel Resort by WIOC
    8. Valley Church Hotel Resort by WIOC/PDVSA
    9. Amazon Call Center at Five Islands
    10. Marriott Autograph Hotel at Yeptons
    11. Beach Club at Fort James by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
    12. Renovation and Expansion of Halcyon Hotel
    13. Port Oasis Project at Side Hill
    14. NAMCO acquisition of Jolly Beach Hotel
    15. Best Western Hotel at Jolly Harbour
    16. Marriott Courtyard Airport Hotel
    17. Cedar Valley Golf Course Hotel
    18. Mike Tyson Hotel
    19. Bau Panel/UNOPS Project
    20. The Yida Project
    21. Willoughby Bay Project
    22. Western Imperial Special Economic Zone (WISEZ)
    23. Brova Idea Pearl Hotel – Partly Underwater Hotel
    24. USD $300 Million Hotel from Investors in Holland
    25. Paradise Found (Barbuda)
    26. Armand Hotel (Barbuda)

    • Omg 😳😳😳 i know about some of those but there are a lot that they didn’t accomplish.

      It kinda disturbs me that they are majority hotels. By putting in all these hotels how is the island to become sustainable if we hit another crisis and tourism is crippled again?

      • True, we need to broaden the economic base with new industries.
        They killed BauPanel and the 1000 manufacturing jobs.
        The 500 new jobs to come with the Amazon call centre also flopped, and the 300 existing Alorica jobs died.
        So unfortunately we missed opportunities to diversify, on top of the hotel investments which would have provided greater spending power to help all sectors grow.
        Its just a s-show under Labour.
        We could have at least used tourism to get the economic growth going, and then, as you rightly suggest, move towards a more diversified economy.
        But with Gaston it’s failure in ALL areas. Tourism. Manufecturing. And IT.

  2. When will my people learn to adapt. The solution to inflation is the uninformed increase in income. It’s a novel concept shall we look to see where else in the world this has been done, successfully. Oh yes, nowhere.

    • @ When you don’t know you just don’t know

      YOU CHATTING A LOT OF CHIT…….GIMME A BREAK AND STOP YOUR RANSIDNESS, how can that be an ‘uninformed increase in income’ , you fool. Inflation erodes spending power so one is unable to purchase things that they were able to afford prior. An increase in income is one solution to the problem, given in line with annual inflation, thats why salaries and wages should be increased annually to compensate !!!

  3. Now it’s obvious this is one of those Monday morning farticles that managed to make its way to publication. If this wouldn’t work in reducing cost then tell us how. Guess #UPPNEARGA plan is to make Antigua a welfare state.

    • How dumb are you?

      People must thank Gaston for a measly $20 per month savings while he allows food prices and stagnant wages to kill them?

      You ALP nearga think people chupid?

      Another hidden tax is the electricity price which stays artificially high even when fuel is rock bottom. ABLP has killed our pockets in so many way and the people will not be fooled.

      Also are you saying that these 26 fails, announced in the budget and by Max hurst are in fact open, running and providing jobs?

      #RedDead

    • @ Just Saying
      u cannot please you guys. upp offers all the social programmes to help poor people but u guys call it socialism, when Gaston increase gas by inordinate amounts and upp call for relief for poor people you guys say it is justified, but just taking a dollar off the gasoline when you had previously increased it by $3 and with world prices decreasing, do u think antigua people fooly and not up to the trickster Gaston and you paid minions singing for ya supper

  5. Who write these foolish articles not taking to account the world prices of fuel. .. An Economic Idiot had to be the writer of such article.

    • So let me get this right.

      Fuel prices goes up all over the world; Cost of living goes up in Antigua and the government does nothing to try and reduce the cost of living?

      You must be an idiot.

    • The only idiot must be you. The article is saying that Gastons actions are of virtually zero benefit to the people. We need BOLD RELIEF MEASURES that actually change people’s day to day experience. Lower food prices. Higher wages. And we neeed JOBS JOBS JOBS.

      We lost 7,000 jobs alone, through the 26 failed projects. Are unemployed people supposed to rejoice of the measly $1 when their critical need for gainful work is unaddressed by Failston Browne?

      You ALP brown-nosers kill me.

  6. Hmmmmm… I think we keep forgetting that Tourism is our main stay and we do not make or export anything on a grand scale to offset importation of food and other items… We will always be paying higher… When the shipping lines increase their cost to the customer, it is obviously passed on to us as they will not be absorbing not even a quart… These people are in the business of making money… Also, it’s not only in Antigua that cost of living is up… It’s all over… We are behaving as if it’s just us and everybody elsewhere just enjoying life… We need to educate ourselves and stop listening to some of these rubbish… Everybody jus’ want fu get een so all kind a sudden a go say… Den when dem get dey dem do de same shit an worse… Ole people say when you have siddung, nah tek tan up…

    • Sorry, you’re not coming through clearly.

      Are you against lowering food prices by lowering duty?
      Are you against people getting a living wage, whcih would boost aggregate demand and help businesses survive and thrive?
      Do you support ABLP’s 26-project failure to deliver the promised jobs?

      Please say what you really mean. Lol

    • @Shocked
      Very well said! Florida’s biggest revenue source is tourism as well, the state is anticipating 185 million visitors in 2022, Florida’s government is drowning in surplus cash because of it.
      Increased oil production will being costs down worldwide, this “green” bulls..t must be eliminated once and for all.

  8. More jobs sounds great. Maybe If the government stops preventing businesses from opening that will compete with there friends businesses we would have more jobs. My good friends have been trying to open a helicopter company here for over two years. even flew the helicopter down last sept. it sits unused and they are unable to employ myself and others. surprised they havent given up yet.

  9. Can’t you people see this governments want to see people hungry and stav to death the governments is not doing anything about costs of living. The supermarket doing as they like. I know cost of things has went up but they are over doing it taking advantage of poor people. Salaries is not going up. When will people pay go up?if things are not going to get better then more crime is going to take place in this little Antigua.

  10. “Raising of the Minimum Wage to a National Living Wage, in line with inflation;
    4. Raising Government Wages to a fair level, in line with inflation.”

    WHERE IS THIS MONEY COMING FROM? Yes, I’m yelling! Are small businesses that are barely hanging on just supposed to pull money from their asses?

    You know what they’ll do, they’ll dramatically raise prices or just close their doors.

    Instead of accusing and slinging platitudes, perhaps Mr. Lovell can start explaining how he proposes to fund some of his “brilliant” ideas.

    • @ Scott
      The money will come………………
      ………….From the $7,000,000 purchase of deluxe
      ………….From the $70,000,000 rip-off of the e-books
      ………From the $150,000,000 rip-off the ‘enrichment schemes’ of ministers etc etc

      • @Tangled Web:
        1: Are those liquidatable assets or are they losses on uncompleted projects?
        2: Injecting that much cash into a relatively small economy is going to cause MASSIVE inflation, like that of Venezuela. You’re ok with $30 or $40 dollar/gallon gasoline?
        3: What happens when that money runs out?

  12. Cost of Living goes Up and Down. But wages can only go one way and that is up. That is why one cannot react impulsively when the Cost of Living goes up to increase wages immediately. It takes time to see if this rise in the Cost of Living is permanent or not. And since we know the reason for this cost of living is a temporary situation, one doesn’t expect the war to last forever, or at least not for years. Economist have been struggling about this chicken or egg filosofy for ages. What was first a price hike are a wage hike. When we compare wages from 30 years ago with wages now and we also compare the cost of living of 30 years ago with that of tady, we can see the difference clearly. We are not an islands by our own. We should observe also what happens in other Islands and what happens in the rest of the world. We live in a competitive market. Our main export is tourism. If we became un-competitive we may lose out big time on our main foreign exchange earner. having said that people do feel the squeez when they are forced in these situation. But not that it matters to the one that feels it, we are not the only one. I would suggest companies give employees a temporary Cost of Living Allowance. Something that can be taken away when the COL gets back to previous levels. That way the wages itself stay fixed, but the take home pay will increase. As I said when you increase a wage/salary you cannot bring it back down. But when you increase a price of an item, you can decrease it when it becomes possible to do.
    The UPP just playing politics or they really have no clue about economics and how it works. You reduce duties you have less money top pay for the running of government. You increase wages you need more money to run government. How does that adds up. The math simply doesn’t work. They should think things through before they proppose them. Cause luckily enough there are some of us that are not just buying a pig in a bag.

  13. @From The Sidelines – your comment is correct all across the boards.
    Prices will start to ease probably sometime next year, during covid oil refineries took advantage of the drastically reduced demand for oil to shut down production for maintenance and etc. Suddenly covid fu..kery ended, people came out of house arrest and demand for oil went nuts…but refineries weren’t ready.
    Ukraine is an issue as well.
    In my opinion, Antigua needs to start a massive ad campaign in the states and second, find another airline that’s willing to fly direct routes from Tampa, Orlando…anywhere other than Miami.
    “Progressive” welfare isn’t the answer, strengthening your economy is, and is for the long term.

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