UPP calls on Gov’t to lower fuel prices now in keeping with drop in oil prices – to below US$100 – on international market
Following the tumble of international oil prices on Tuesday, July 5, and with the US benchmark falling below US$100 per barrel, the United Progressive Party (UPP) is again calling for local fuel prices to be lowered.
The call comes weeks after the Gaston Browne Administration increased the prices of gasoline and diesel to over $17 per gallon.
In line with plummeting global oil prices, UPP Political Leader Harold Lovell says the Government should immediately reduce the price of fuel.
Since the middle of June, he notes, oil prices have been on a consistent decline, which precipitated the sharp price-drop to below US$100 per barrel.
Lovell notes that the global oil price has fallen by more than US$20 since the Administration’s last price hike in June.
He points out that the Government was quick to respond to increases in the global oil price, but with no attempt to cushion the impact on people or businesses.
Yet, he says, “… after over two weeks of declining oil prices, the ABLP Administration has yet to reduce local fuel prices to a reasonable level.”
According to Lovell, the citizens and residents of Antigua and Barbuda are in need of relief now – especially because no measures have been implemented to reduce the high cost of living.
Several persons tell REAL News that their pockets would welcome the relief that a drop in fuel prices would bring. And a civil servant who complained today, July 6, that her financial institution had not yet received June salaries is agreeing.
“I bank at Community First Credit Union,” she called our News Room to say, “and, up to now, no salary. What am I’m supposed to use to buy this expensive gas to go to work?” she asks. “If they can’t pay me on time, then at least drop the gas,” she declares in disgust.
