Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s $1 re­duc­tion in the price of Su­per Gaso­line in the last bud­get has re­sult­ed in an ad­di­tion­al $318 mil­lion fu­el sub­sidy re­quire­ment fol­low­ing ris­ing glob­al fu­el prices.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh, how­ev­er, has as­sured that the ad­di­tion­al cost will not be passed on to cit­i­zens.

He gave that as­sur­ance in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to queries from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs.

Swarats­ingh said the over­all im­pact of the sit­u­a­tion will be re­port­ed in the up­com­ing 2027 Bud­get.

Attzs had asked the Gov­ern­ment to state the es­ti­mat­ed fis­cal im­pact of its 2026 Bud­get de­ci­sion to re­duce the price of Su­per Gaso­line by $1 per litre, and whether ris­ing glob­al fu­el prices had af­fect­ed Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture and the deficit.

Af­ter Swarats­ingh re­vealed the ad­di­tion­al $318 mil­lion sub­sidy re­quire­ment, Attzs queried the ef­fect of the in­creased cost on the Bud­get’s fis­cal deficit.

Swarats­ingh said the fis­cal state­ment would be giv­en at the end of the 2026 fis­cal pe­ri­od, “which is still be­ing cal­cu­lat­ed.”

Giv­en the ad­di­tion­al cost, Attzs al­so asked at what point the Gov­ern­ment would re­view the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of main­tain­ing the $1 re­duc­tion on Su­per Gaso­line.

Swarats­ingh said the Fi­nance Min­is­ter and his team are now prepar­ing the Bud­get and he would al­low the min­is­ter to give a re­view of the re­duc­tion de­ci­sion in the Bud­get.

He said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment un­der­stands “the con­cerns of the work­ing class, the man on the ground” and un­der­stands that pol­i­cy goes be­yond fig­ures to in­volve peo­ple who “con­tin­ue to feel the pres­sure of the cost of liv­ing.”

He said that was why the 2026 Bud­get in­clud­ed the $1 re­duc­tion in the price of Su­per Gaso­line, from $6.97 to $5.97.

Swarats­ingh said the world is now fac­ing se­ri­ous geopo­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty.

“In­ter­na­tion­al oil and fu­el mar­kets re­main volatile; coun­tries are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ris­ing en­er­gy prices and im­port costs and in­creased pres­sures at the pump.

“This Gov­ern­ment has kept the price of fu­el steady, even though the cost of im­port­ing re­fined fu­el has in­creased and even though we’re more ex­posed to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets fol­low­ing the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s clo­sure of Petrotrin,” Swarats­ingh added.

Now, when in­ter­na­tion­al fu­el prices rise, he said, T&T feels it more di­rect­ly.

He con­firmed that the re­duced price of Su­per Gaso­line does car­ry a cost to the State.

How­ev­er, he made it clear that the ad­di­tion­al cost would be car­ried by the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing it un­der­stands that a fu­el price in­crease would have a di­rect and im­me­di­ate im­pact on trans­porta­tion, food prices and the over­all cost of liv­ing.

He stressed that the Gov­ern­ment would shield cit­i­zens from in­creas­es and keep fu­el prices sta­ble, even when this re­quires State sup­port.

Swarats­ingh said the ac­tu­al im­pact on ex­pen­di­ture will de­pend on the pay­ments made dur­ing the fis­cal year.

“And these pay­ments will con­tin­ue to be man­aged care­ful­ly based on avail­able fis­cal space.”

He said the fis­cal im­pact of the ad­di­tion­al sub­sidy could not be viewed in iso­la­tion. While high­er oil prices may in­crease sub­sidy costs, he said, they will al­so re­sult in in­creased en­er­gy rev­enue, which will par­tial­ly mit­i­gate the in­creased sub­sidy bill.