The Barbados-based Rubis West Indies Limited is threatening to sever ties with its employees in Dominica after claiming it is being forced to subsidize the local market for petroleum products.
“Following our suspension of sales on September 15, if this is not resolved in a timely and meaningful manner we will be severing ties with the employees come September 30,” said country manager, Nicholson Dodds.
Speaking on the state-owned DBC radio, Dodds, said Rubis, which has operations throughout the Eastern Caribbean as well as Guyana, said “we are being forced to subsidize the market” based on the pricing system from the Ministry of Trade.
“What I mean by that when you import a gallon of product, assuming that the landed cost here is ten dollars, the price build-up starts at let’s say nine dollars. So that for every gallon we are selling, even before the product gets to the market we are losing money.
“We have made repeated approaches to government, and government is quite aware of it. In 2021, the government made some concessions to us, and they promised they will get back to the table in the first quarter of 2022 came and we made several attempts to meet with the government, we wrote to the government, and we are still waiting.”
Dodds said Rubis “cannot wait indefinitely, the losses continue, we can no longer sustain them.”
He told radio listeners that if a product is bought and the landed cost into Dominica is EC$10 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) and “you have to sell it less than the landed cost, you are making losses even before the product get out there into the market.
“We are being forced to subsidize it. Petroleum product is a regulated product. We don’t fix the price, the ministry does. It is not a question that we are losing a dollar and we can say let’s increase it by a dollar, it doesn’t work like that.
“For every importation that we bring in we must bring the invoice to the Ministry of Trade, so the ministry is quite aware of what we are paying for it, and based on that they do the price build-up,” he added.
The government has not yet responded to his statement.
According to its website, Rubis West Indies Limited employs more than 200 people across the Caribbean.
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