Dawn Ritch
HOW EASILY and coolly the Office of Utility Regulation informs us that our electricity bill will go up by about 30-40 per cent. How effortless the beggaring of the population. They must think everybody in the country is in drugs and other illegal activities.
Oil is US$40-US$42 a barrel. In 1980 when the price of oil was US$34, Americans were earning US$20,000 a year. Today they're earning US$60,000 a year. Those who watch oil markets say that, in order for the oil crisis to have the same negative impact now as then on Americans, the price per barrel would have to reach US$71 a barrel. In real terms therefore, oil costs them less now than it did in the oil crisis of the late 1970s. The problem is not theirs, but ours. Because our dollar has steadily devalued against the U.S. dollar.
The current 23 per cent increase in the price of oil therefore, over the last four to five weeks, has serious implications for Jamaica. The cost of transportation, utilities, and airline tickets are set to increase. Indeed prices in general are set to rise. Both the manufacturing and service industries will be hit hard by the steadily rising cost of fuel, even as our purchasing power declines.
Rural towns will be hardest hit because they depend totally on transportation for most of their goods and services. Yet none of this seems to have prompted our Government, nor the Office of Utility Regulation, to act in the people's interest. The unions are making some muffled sounds about their wage freeze and the Memorandum of Understanding. But all of this suggests that the huge rate increase proposed on an essential service and supplied by a monopoly is to be sent scurrying into the pockets of all Jamaicans to suck up every last piece of loose change floating around.
The Government says it plans to reduce energy consumption in the public service by 10 per cent. This is an easy target for the Government to meet, because they waste so much of every resource. Indeed if they were to get serious, they could probably save 20 per cent. But there is not a private business nor household in Jamaica that can conserve 10 per cent more energy today, because the already very high cost was a mighty incentive to save anyway.
TIGHTEST SHIPS
I think that the vast majority of Jamaicans, who don't steal electricity, are already running the tightest ships possible. We are conserving as much as we can unless we were to turn out the lights completely. I know of one elderly woman existing on a single bulb today, and it still hasn't lowered her bill. How much harder does the Most Honourable intend to squeeze us? Until the pips squeak? He's not saying a word about the windfall in taxes that these higher oil prices brings the Government's coffers. His new protégé in the PNP succession, Dr. Omar Davies, is ominously silent as well. They'e silent about the benefits of billions and billions of dollars of additional tax from gasolene at higher prices.
The JUTC buses currently rely on the budget, so the higher price of fuel will be a factor. This is soon settled by mandating an increase in bus fares. Together with being able to pass on increases directly to customers and tax payers, and their conservation methods, this Government is set to benefit from a major windfall arising out of these higher oil prices. These prices are not predicted to go down any time soon. And it's less likely to do so because of the war in Iraq and more because of roaring demand: The economy of China is booming, and the U.S. economy is growing at a clip of above 4 per cent. Already the boom in China is affecting world markets by driving demand for steel and aluminium.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Although China says they're going to slow their economy a bit, they've just announced an order for seven new supertankers to carry oil. India's economy is not doing badly either, and they have a population of 850 million people. Between China determined to become a superpower in my lifetime and India expecting to be a member of the G7 soon, they are going to burn even more oil, not less. Between them they have 30 per cent of the world's population. The really interesting thing is that no new oil refineries have been built anywhere in the last 20 years. Even if Saudi Arabia were to pump an additional two million barrels a day, there would be nowhere to refine it fast enough to get it to market where it can make a difference.
The question is therefore whether or not the Government of Jamaica intends to milk the people of this country for their windfall. Some thoughtful economist ought to add up just what they've made since January of this year compared to a year ago. I think the result would present a formidable case for the immediate reduction of the Govern-ment's taxes on fuel, and a reduction in its price to the public. Not an increase. I am certain that households and businesses require a reprieve from those punishing taxes. And if they refuse to ease up on us, we should demand that every dollar of fuel tax be placed in an escrow account, and used for rural development.
Leaving them with such a windfall is like leaving a child to play with matches beside a drum of gasolene. Our capacity as a people to absorb spiralling taxes without complaint is already the subject of much remark by the international capital markets. If we go for this one, they'll have to give us a medal and inter it immediately thereafter with our bones.
TAILPIECE: If Jamaicans are now being kidnapped and held to ransom, we should at least have oilfields like Trinidad where kidnapping is a part of life. But we don't. This country has become a saga of growing debt, mounting public disorder and injustice, and murder without end, even children killing children. I call upon the Prime Minister to do the honourable thing. Resign in the national interest. You are a lame duck. More on that later.
