Lawmakers have voted in favour of establishing a government committee to review the cost of fuel in the Cayman Islands.
Independent Opposition member Chris Saunders, MP for Bodden Town West, in a private member’s motion brought to Parliament at a late-night sitting on Thursday night last week, called for a select committee, made up of at least six elected members, to investigate why the price of fuel in Cayman is so high.
Echoing an earlier motion by McKeeva Bush, who seconded his motion, Saunders noted that the fuel factor in utility company bills has driven the cost of electricity in Cayman to much higher levels than usual.
Saunders said, back in 2020, the Public Accounts Committee had begun to look into the issue, following an Auditor General’s Office report on the fuel regulator OfReg, but the COVID-19 pandemic had halted that review.
He told the House that he had examined the cost of imported fuel in Cayman over a nine-year period ending in 2021, and his research had shown that Caribbean Utilities Company used $809 million worth of fuel during those years, which accounted for 72% of the $1.13 billion worth of total fuel imported.
He compared the diesel costs listed in CUC’s annual financial statements over several years, citing, for example, that in 2016 CUC stated its fuel cost was $1.87 per gallon and in 2017 it was $2.44, whereas the prices listed by the Economics and Statistics Office were $4.03 per gallon in 2016 and $4.18 per gallon in 2017. The wide disparity in pricing between what fuel cost for CUC and what it generally cost continued in subsequent years, he said.
He noted that CUC buys its diesel in bulk, and its price listed in its financial statements does not include import duty, so that would obviously explain some of the difference in price, but said the disparity in prices was nonetheless “quite significant”.
Saunders questioned how the price of fuel used by every car, plane and boat in Cayman could account for only 28% of the value of imported fuel over a nine-year period.
He told Parliament that he wanted the House to exercise its privilege to create a select committee of six MPs to “get to the answers… and find out once and for all why the fuel cost in this country is so much”.
He added that it was anticipated that fuel prices worldwide would continue to rise next year.
Saunders’ motion calls for the speedy formation of the select committee, with some of its meetings to be held in public, and for its recommendations on how to reduce fuel costs to be released by 29 Feb. 2024.
“We need to get to the bottom of this, and if needs be, see if we can source alternative fuel, or see what we can do. But the bottom line is, doing nothing is not an option,” he said, adding that consumers in Cayman were being “ripped off”.
As the motion was brought late at night after a long day of debate and bills, only a couple of fellow MPs rose to speak to support Saunders’ motion – Bush, whose own motion on electricity prices had been seconded by Saunders, and Infrastructure Minister Jay Ebanks, whom Saunders is requesting to chair the select committee.
All members of the House who were present voted in favour of the motion.
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