CASTRIES, St. Lucia – Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre says the St. Lucian economy has been hit significantly as a result of the ongoing war between Iran and the United States, but that his administration will keep fuel prices unchanged for another three weeks.
Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre and news conference (CMC Photo)“I have some not good news for you. Because of the issues in the oil market, the wars between Iran and the US, the government of St. Lucia has lost EC44.9 million (One EC dollar =US$0.37 cents) in revenue between the period first of April till now,” Pierre told reporters.
Pierre described the multi-million-dollar loss as “a very concerning situation,” adding that EC$32 million has been lost in excise tax on fuel and gas, and increase in subsidies for cooking gas of EC$5.7 million dollars.
“So our revenue projections are down by EC$44.9 million. Very concerning to the Minister of Finance and he has absolutely no control over that.
“He’s never fought a war in Iran, he doesn’t even know where Iran is and he causes no war,” said Pierre, who is also the Minister of Finance here, adding “so I just want to alert you that situation.
“It’s very concerning, but we’ve agreed that we will keep the price of fuel the same for the next three weeks period, even if fuel has gone up past US$100 last week.”
Pierre told reporters that when the price goes up, “it takes some time to reach us” adding that the situation on the oil market is not very good news.
“…we are going to be giving support for education. The education subsidy, the education support bill will continue for the coming period in September,” Pierre said, adding that another pprogramme will commence in the first week of August to help unemployed people “to help them to get some sort of revenue to be able to send them to have their children’s education.
“…and we will continue giving education subsidies to thousands of people throughout the island for the incoming school year,” he said, adding that apart from scholarships for secondary schools the government’s early childhood education programme is going to continue.
“We’re going to be increasing all the budgetary proposals that we made regarding education, early childhood. The government is going to fulfil them. But the fact is, the revenue is down by EC$44.9 million,” Pierre added.
