Opinion
The Standard Cannot Change With the Government
When fuel prices climbed under the last government, few Vincentians accepted that nothing could be done, and the government of the day acted. That same standard must now apply to this one.
Kingstown · 29 July 2026
When global fuel prices and the cost of living climbed under the former Unity Labour Party government, the response from many who now stand with the New Democratic Party was not that nothing could be done. They demanded intervention, and they blamed the administration of the day for every increase.
The former government did respond, and the record is not in dispute. In 2022 it halved the excise tax on gasoline and diesel and waived the customs service charge on the fuel VINLEC buys to generate electricity, easing the surcharge passed on to households. It removed the customs charge on cooking gas. It kept the long-standing VAT relief for domestic electricity users on their first 250 units. Over time it subsidised staples such as flour, sugar, fertiliser, and cement, rolled out cost-of-living support, and turned to PetroCaribe supplies to take some pressure off electricity bills.
Whether those measures went far enough is a separate and legitimate argument. The undeniable point is simpler. Intervention was possible, and intervention was made.
The present government understands this too, because it has done much the same. In May, faced with its own fuel shock, Dr Godwin Friday’s administration cut excise and the customs charge on imported fuel by half, stripped the customs and excise off the diesel VINLEC burns for power, and ordered the utility to share the burden through a matching subsidy. In other words, both governments met the same global forces, and both chose to act.
That is why one argument now in circulation does not hold. It is not honest for some of the very people who condemned the last government to turn around and insist that this one is powerless because oil prices are set abroad. International conditions pressed on both administrations. The standard cannot shift simply because the party in office has changed.
Intervention was possible, and intervention was made.
The question was never whether any Vincentian government controls the world price of oil. None does. The question is what practical measures it takes to cushion the blow at home, and whether those measures are enough. The former government was expected to act, was judged on its results, and was blamed when families still felt the squeeze.
The present government must be held to precisely that standard. Its May package was a start, but the fuel surcharge has since climbed to a record high, and households are still choosing between the light bill and the grocery bill. Crediting a government for acting and pressing it to do more are not contradictions. Together they are what consistent scrutiny looks like.
The temptation, when your side is in office, is to accept excuses you would never have tolerated from the other side. That is the temptation to resist. Hold this government to the standard you set for the last one. Anything less is not loyalty. It is political dishonesty.
Lance Davis is the editor and publisher of Vincypowa News.