Pres­i­dent of the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (PDA) Robin Narayns­ingh is spec­u­lat­ing that prices at the pumps will in­crease by $1 in to­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

“There is a ru­mour that the prices of fu­el will in­crease by $1 at the pumps at ser­vice sta­tions. I am not sure if it is true. That is what I am hear­ing. Our mem­bers know the prices will go up...but we don’t know if it will take ef­fect to­mor­row (to­day). But we know it will def­i­nite­ly go up,” Narayns­ingh told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Ear­li­er this month, Im­bert, speak­ing dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion at the Spot­light on the Econ­o­my at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, es­ti­mat­ed that the fu­el sub­sidy will cost the Gov­ern­ment $2.6 bil­lion for 2022 at cur­rent en­er­gy prices.

Im­bert said that for the fis­cal year 2023, it could cost $2.1 bil­lion based on US$97.50 a bar­rel of oil. He al­so re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment wants to cap the fu­el sub­sidy at $1 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly, and this could lead to high­er fu­el prices in the short run.

Im­bert may ad­dress this is­sue in to­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment.

In April, the price of a litre of pre­mi­um gaso­line in­creased by $1 to $6.75. Su­per gaso­line jumped from $4.97 to $5.97 per litre and the price of diesel went up by 50 cents per litre to $3.91.

The pop­u­la­tion, un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, has been sub­ject­ed to sev­er­al fu­el prices.

Narayns­ingh said if the prices should in­crease again in 2022, it would cause a chain re­ac­tion.

“Every­thing will go up again...from pub­lic trans­porta­tion to gro­cery items.”

He said April’s price ad­just­ment was a hard blow to the low­er and mid­dle-in­come earn­ers, who have been grap­pling with ris­ing food in­fla­tion trig­gered by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and con­flict be­tween Ukraine and Rus­sia.

How­ev­er, he felt the sub­sidy should re­main for cer­tain sec­tors of so­ci­ety.

Narayns­ingh said the pop­u­la­tion has to un­der­stand the po­si­tion the Gov­ern­ment has found it­self in with falling rev­enues and ris­ing debt.

“There will nev­er be a good time for a price ad­just­ment. No time will be palat­able for the coun­try or for peo­ple who think they have to pay more so sud­den­ly,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said cit­i­zens must al­so be mind­ful that the price of fu­el is al­ways flu­id.

“It can al­ways go up or down. So, we have to be pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ty.”

Narayns­ingh ad­mit­ted that his mem­bers met to dis­cuss what an in­crease would mean to their strug­gling busi­ness­es.

“We had meet­ings...we know the price will go up. But the ef­fect on the pe­tro­le­um deal­ers is go­ing to be hard be­cause a lot of us will have to go to the banks to have in­creased over­draft fa­cil­i­ties and oth­er charges. We must be able to have more mon­ey to buy the prod­ucts so we can sell them. It is go­ing to be dif­fi­cult, it will be a strug­gle.”

Narayns­ingh said his 130 mem­bers have ex­pressed ap­pre­hen­sion at an­oth­er price in­crease.

In the last five months, Narayns­ingh said rev­enue at sev­er­al ser­vice sta­tions dropped be­tween eight to ten per cent.

“It’s an all-round de­cline. It has in­creased the hard­ship of their op­er­a­tions. Some­times they fall short of their or­der, or it de­creas­es their cash flow. They have to buy less fu­el.”

He said mo­torists have al­so been spend­ing less on fu­el.

“In oth­er words, if a mo­torist was ac­cus­tomed to spend­ing $200 a week to fill their tank. They are spend­ing the same amount but re­ceiv­ing less fu­el.”

Narayns­ingh said some dri­vers have been con­serv­ing fu­el by dri­ving less.

Asked if an­oth­er price hike could lead to ser­vice sta­tions clos­ing their busi­ness­es, Narayns­ingh said “that could be a pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

He added that mo­torists are al­so anx­ious.

“They are hop­ing that Gov­ern­ment pulls the brake on a price in­crease in to­mor­row’s bud­get be­cause it has on­ly been five months since the last hike and it would on­ly bring fur­ther hard­ship on the pop­u­la­tion.”