Who bears the burden of the fuel price hike

With the issues going back and forth with regards to the introduction of new fuel prices, questions are beginning to pop up and many of them without are without answers. Perhaps the most relevant amongst them, is the one which seeks to address who’s shoulders the burden of this fuel price hike was intended to be carried.

The next question which follows the above, in the order of importance is the one which wants to know who has benefitted from salary increase as an accompanying option for the increase in fuel prices.

Without asking any more questions, it is clear that, in the first place, it is the ordinary Cameroonian who is neither a civil servant nor a transporter who must bear the burden of the global inflation net work on all commodities.

Because of the rise in fuel prices, transport fares have equally been increased rather disproportionately and unilaterally. Because of the five percent salary increase for civil servants, market prices risk moving up in a rather uncontrolled manner.

While we look to government on the need to respond to economic logic and respect world market prices, we however think the increase is too severe and does not take into consideration the weak foundation on which our economy lies. It must be stated that developing economies are essentially subsidy-driven and any attempts to impose western patterns has calamitous consequences.

Government seems to have acted with very little concern for its people. In this circumstance, government action can easily be described as a betrayal of a population outside the civil service, who have been operating under very severe economic conditions in an economic system that is not-so-well defined to encourage private sector participation. An economic system that is being overwhelmed with numerous taxes and embedded with corruption at all levels.

We want to believe that the government went a little out of its way to impose a fuel price increase without any consideration for those connected in the producer-consumer network and a whole circle of activities involved. It is obvious that if government had taken some to hold consultations with those directly concerned, an acceptable consensus would have been struck, such that will not provoke anger or disgust in any quarters.

Secondly, the government went out of its way to impose such harsh measures on the people in the very middle of a financial year and putting it into effect without letting it pass through parliament as a Bill. One major defiance of an important principle of democracy is one in which presidential decrees, prime ministerial orders, go through parliamentary scrutiny and become laws. A decision such as an increase in the prices of fuel is one which touches down on everyone within the country.

It is common knowledge, through previous experiences, that any move to raise fuel prices automatically ends up in inflation. And while other economies such as Ghana have put in place certain measures to check inflation, we are an extraordinary case where such actions have been taken; government ministers overstep pre-consultations for consensus but prefer after-event consultations mainly to justify their actions.

Which is why the Minister of Commerce, Luc Magloire Atangana’s recent meetings with traders in big markets in Yaounde and Douala last week was a wasted effort. The latest consultations with stake-holders, including the trade unions and employers? unions during which all parties agreed on a basic minimum wage increase from FCFA 28,000 to FCFA 36,250 is not only belated, but will hardly offset the huge burden which the population has been forced to shoulder.

But for the wage increase itself, we are aware it has been a rare circumstance though it may not be much, it is something after all.