other items are increasing was discussed in the House Monday. The House passed the Customs Tariff Amendment Act which essentially puts into effect many of the new duties announced in this year's Budget.

As the act went through the final stages of debate, the Opposition raised many of the same arguments against increases it had when the changes were announced in the budget. Shadow Finance Minister Grant Gibbons said the possible inflationary effects of increasing fuel prices by five percent will not really be seen until BELCO changes trickle down to consumers.

But yesterday BELCO president Garry Madeiros said the Island's only power company isn't sure yet whether they are affected or not.

"We are unclear whether BELCO is impacted. We looked at the budget speech,'' he said. "It sounded like we were impacted but a representative from the Ministry of Finance has inferred that our category is not impacted.'' Mr. Madeiros said that BELCO has written to the Ministry for clarification.

However, he said that if BELCO is affected, the trickle down cost to the consumer will be an increase of roughly 68 cents on each monthly bill.

He said that BELCO's costs on a barrel of fuel would rise from $15.10 to $15.85 and that would mean an average island household, using 685 kwh of energy and currently billed $167.62 would rise to $168.30 -- or roughly 0.4 percent.

Mr. Gibbons pointed out on Monday that while the budget says fuels are raised five percent, if you look at different fuels categorised in the tariff act, the increase ranges from 5.6 percent on petroleum to 8.8 percent on diesel and 13.3 percent on kerosene and questioned why the Minister referred to it as a five percent rise in the budget.

Finance Minister Eugene Cox argued however, that as the fuel rises were a matter of a few cents, the percentages were as close to five percent as possible but rounded to avoid using fractions of a cent.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell argued that taxes on alcohol will hurt tourism and "send a mixed message to the industry.'' Duty on alcohol is being raised five percent.

Mr. Dodwell said that while the Government was supporting the industry through initiatives like the Hotel Concessions Act, when tourists have to pay more for drinks they already consider expensive it hurts Bermuda's product overall.

Many of the other amendments in the Act amounted to eliminating sub-categories and harmonising duty on things like fish fillets and different vegetables to five percent.

Mr. Gibbons said that the Opposition had no problem with the simplification of the categories but questioned why they didn't go further to eliminate unnecessary categorisation in other areas such as textiles.

Mr. Cox said similar changes may be seen in the future but for now "these are the changes''.