After January 12, 2010, the Government of Haiti, had established special tax measures, designed to cushion the effects of the fuel bill for the people, consisting not to pass to the consumers, the rising in oil prices and absorb the living costs, in other words to subsidize part of the customer's bill.

Measures that cost more than $200 million to the Government [of 10 March 2010 to March 10, 2012]. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2011-2012 the bill already stands at nearly $55 million [loss of petroleum revenues].

"At a time where the risk of price surge of barrel of crude oil remains high on the international market, the adoption of measures who will come correct this situation is desirable to the extent that the maintain of the status quo could be detrimental to revenue objectives set as part of the proposed 2011-2012 budget," underlines the Ministry of Economy.

André Lemercier Georges, the Minister of Economy and Finance has indicated that the government could not continue to subsidize fuel and it would be desirable to consider to motivate people to change their consumption habits by adopting responsible behaviors to cope with the increase in oil prices.

The Minister could start by taking action against the use of all the big 4X4 vehicles, large consumers of fuel, for example by imposing a special surtax variable, which would penalize them and vice versa would apply to a lesser extent to the low-consumption vehicles. Similarly, the application of this tax should apply without delay on all imported vehicles (new or second hand).

If it is true that Haiti can no longer continue indefinitely to subsidize fuel costs, it would be desirable that this measure be gradual given the fragility of the Haitian economy.

HL/ HaitiLibre