The skyrocketing oil prices are expected to inject more uncertainty into an already off-balanced world economy that is still reeling from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Minister of Transportation and Utilities Kye Rymer said he is expecting the high prices to have some impact on the territory. However, he used the moment to continue encouraging people to think about greener alternatives.

“We have encouraged persons to go green and utilise the shuttles and less consumption of fossil fuels. We expect what is happening in the world to impact us. Like the president of the United States mentioned to his people to brace for inflation and some hardship. So, yes, we will see it and the government will discuss measures and then try to put measures in place to make things easier for the people of this territory,” Rymer said.

‘Buckle up’, Premier warns

Meanwhile, Premier Andrew Fahie said the BVI government does not control the world’s economy. But similar to what US President Joe Biden told the Americans recently, the people of the Virgin Islands must “buckle up” as there will be some economic hardship resulting from the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

“This is not going to be something I or anybody could control here in the BVI, that is going to be difficult, but we have started some things that can help, that is why we went green. Even if fuel price increase with the war in Ukraine, it does not increase the cost of the sun,” Fahie said.

“We have shown that we want to deal with these matters by being proactive, not knowing there is a war going on in Ukraine. When we passed legislation that all the resources and materials for going green and for alternative energy can come in the territory duty-free. We have done some things with the school and putting things where we don’t need to be reliant on fossil fuel, we have been doing some things to be proactive. Yes, there are going to be some effects of it but by being proactive, we can mitigate some of them,” the Premier added.

Our news centre tried reaching the General Manager for the BVI Electricity Corporation (BVIEC), Leroy Abrahams but up until news time, all efforts made were unsuccessful.