Chamber seeks some form of fuel relief; PM says “It’s embarrassing”

By Breaking Belize News Staff: Recently, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) wrote to Prime Minister John Briceno requesting some form of “additional short-term measures aimed at cushioning the productive sector and the wider public from sustained fuel cost pressures.” But, PM Briceno says that the chamber’s request is “embarrassing.” “I don’t really, it’s embarrassing. Listen if you collect $100 in taxes, you have environmental tax, you have the GST, you have the excise and the import tax, it is still a $100. It doesn’t matter where you take it off from. You can take it off from environmental tax, you can take it off import tax or excise, it is still removing monies from the whole amount you are doing and that is what you are doing. So it is embarrassing sometimes to read such proclamations from the Chamber,” the Prime Minister said. In addition, the PM called on dealers to do their part. “The dealers are expected to do their part and we hope that they would understand it is not something we would do out of malice or anything but we are all in this boat together so everybody has to do their part. It’s like with the unions; during Covid, you know, with the government we had to appeal with them to accept a salary cut because everyone was going through a difficult time. So I am appealing to them and I am hoping that common sense is going to prevail,” he added. The post Chamber seeks some form of fuel relief; PM says “It’s embarrassing” appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.