14293: Wharram: Miami Herald article: Sudden, steep gas-price hike stuns Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Bryan L. Wharram <bryanwharram@brybiz.com>

Posted on Fri, Jan. 03, 2003

Sudden, steep gas-price hike stuns Haitians
BY JANE REGAN
Special to The Herald

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Ermicil Cherizier and her three boys usually live by the
light of two kerosene lamps.

On Thursday, Cherizier tried to buy a refill to illuminate her home in the
capital's foothills, but found the price of kerosene had nearly doubled
overnight.

''I had to buy candles instead,'' said Cherizier, whose income selling cassava
bread and crackers on the dirt roadside couldn't cover the increase.

In Haiti, many people live on less than $1 a day. For Cherizier, a half liter
of kerosene was suddenly 35 cents.

As the international price of oil shoots up to $32 a barrel, Haitians are
beginning to feel the pinch. On New Year's Eve, the government raised the
official prices of gasoline and kerosene -- without warning -- by between 85
and 90 percent.

MAJORITY AFFECTED

The increase will affect not only drivers, or anyone who uses the public
transportation called ''Tap Taps,'' but also the majority of the nation's
eight million people who light their homes with kerosene.

''I don't know what I will do,'' said Cherizier, who says she already feels
pinched by the country's economic crisis, which has sent the national currency
plummeting. ``We'll just have to sit in the dark.''

The oil strike in Venezuela has sent prices soaring and forced nations such as
Haiti -- one of 11 that have a special treaty with the South American nation
for oil purchases -- to turn to the spot market.

However, the government says the crisis in Venezuela isn't what's driving up
the prices in Haiti. Instead, the government has had to stop subsidizing gas
prices because its monetary reserves are low, said Jacques Maurice, a
government spokesman.

The International Monetary Fund also has asked the government to raise gas
prices, a condition the fund set for giving aid to the country. Haiti last
raised prices in 2000, according to an IMF report. The issue is a political
hot potato in the nation.

Maurice said the National Palace is aware prices for food and other goods will
go up.

''But we got to the point where we couldn't subsidize the rise on the
international market any longer, since our resources are scarce,'' he said.
''We are doing everything possible so that the price hike doesn't affect the
population,'' Maurice explained, adding that the government will make efforts
to keep food prices down. Maurice didn't give details on how that would be
possible.

Artificially keeping gas prices low only hurts the consumer in the end,
because a dramatic increase like this week's ultimately comes, said Claude
Beauboeuf, a Haitian economic consultant and commentator.

DIRE PREDICTION

Economist Jean Claude Paulvin, director of a Haitian consulting firm, said the
price increase will affect all aspects of life, from food and transportation
to daily services.

''People's buying power will descend dramatically,'' Paulvin said. He believes
the increase will lead to civil unrest and protests.

Local businesses say they, too, foresee trouble.

''We are the ones who will lose out,'' explained Carmel Lanauze, who runs
Roger Lanauze Funeral Enterprises with her husband. At their 12 funeral
parlors, bodies are preserved with electricity from generators. ``The
government just all of a sudden announced there was no gas two weeks ago, and
now it doubled the prices without telling us. We knew it would go up due to
the international situation, but we thought it would be a gourde or two, like
in the past.''

Herald staff writer Marika Lynch contributed to this report.


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/haiti/4863409.htm


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