Paulwell: Brace for more fare increases
Published:Wednesday | July 27, 2022 | 12:10 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
WITH APPROXIMATELY 40 days before the start of the new school year in September, the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) is urging the Government to do more than lip service to cushion the effects of surging prices on gasoline, and ease the pain and pressure on Jamaicans.
Paulwell, on Sunday, told PNP supporters in the Catadupa division of the St James Southern constituency that they will be paying more to cover the cost of their transportation needs come September.
The new academic school year runs from September 5, 2022 to August 31, 2023, but according to Paulwell, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), for which a large portion of the commuting public are students and the elderly, announced just last week that it has no money to pay for fuel.
“It’s only one way I know they (JUTC) know how to raise money, so as we get back to school the pickney them are going to face with higher bus fares, the poor people them are going to be faced with higher bus fares,” Paulwell warned.
He said a similar fate awaits even those who are numbered among the employed population.
“The working-class people whose increases in salary have no bearing on the cost of living are going to be faced with more increases on their bus fares,” he noted.
Paulwell cautioned that if the Government failed to act appropriately the country could end up with unfavourable anti-government strikes, as has been the situation in Sri Lanka recently. “People can take so much and no more. We see what has happened in Sri Lanka, we don’t want it here. But a word to the wise is sufficient,” he noted.
“It is becoming unbearable and I believe that the Government has to do something apart from just lip service to the crisis that we now face,” the Opposition’s energy spokesman said.
Paulwell also reiterated calls he made for the Government to remove the fuel tax to offer immediate relief to Jamaicans while blasting the Government for its handling of the PetroCaribe arrangement, rescinding Venezuela’s 49 per cent ownership in Petrojam, the country’s oil refinery, thereby ending all oil-purchasing arrangements with the South American country.
PetroCaribe, an energy initiative of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was launched in 2005 to supply Venezuelan crude oil to countries in the Caribbean region at discounted prices.
The deal allowed Jamaica and several other Caribbean territories to purchase oil on preferential payment conditions. It allowed beneficiary countries to buy oil at market value, but only pay a per cent of the cost upfront. The balance could be paid over 25 years at one per cent interest.