Bahamians will soon be required to pay record prices for basic necessities. Why? Because Philip Davis, the Bahamas’ prime minister, disregarded some dire warnings from Bahamian authorities.
On February 1, Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis tabled a report in Parliament. The report stressed government spending over the fiscal year 2022-2023. At the end of the report, the Bahamian PM revealed some striking information that became a thorny issue.
The recent disclosure of approximately $150 million of payment arrears of Bahamas Power and Light represents a significant unbudgeted liability of the government. Yes, a $150m unbudgeted liability.
The Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) utility has $150 million in arrears, which led the Free National Movement (FNM) to once again call for Minister of Works Alfred Sears to resign over what it claimed had been his “ineptness/bungling” of the utility’s affairs.
Ignorance At Its Peek
The opposition party has connected the BPL arrears to the Davis administration’s decision to disregard recommendations from the BPL’s fuel hedge committee to carry out fuel hedge trades to lock in oil prices and maintain the BPL fuel charge stability in the fall of 2021.
The FNM has argued over a period of months that the failure to complete those transactions and the prime minister’s decision to undo a BPL fuel charge increase announced by BPL in February directly contributed to consumers having to bear a significantly higher fuel charge that is being phased in over months.
In addition to this, the FNM has argued that Bahamians were first lied about overall BPL arrears. At first, information was circulated that arrears cost is up to $90m. But, now it has almost doubled.
Now you might know the reasons why fuel prices across the nation have increased over the last year. There are rounds of discussions that the fuel charge will almost double for smaller consumers in less than a year and nearly triple for larger consumers very soon. Consumers will pay higher fuel prices for the following year in order to cover those expenses.
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Easiest Way to Fleece Money
The Bahamian government in the Bahamas is picking the easiest way to reduce the unbudgeted debt. The two most popular ways to reduce debt are to increase taxes and cut spending, but politicians are often reluctant to do both.
So, what they simply do is start raising prices via fuel, which is one of the most common ways to increase the cost of almost every other commodity in nations. Instead of direct paying, the taxpayers indirectly pay extra for almost everything they purchase from electricity to bread to vegetables.
Without a doubt, the increase in fuel prices is the result of Davis’ ignorance. And eventually, the only ones who suffer from this absurdity will be the general public.
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