CNPP Warns FG, Senate Against Planned Fuel Tax

CHANNELS TV

The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties has joined organised labour in rejecting the planned increment of prices of petroleum products.

“We assure the Senate and the Federal Government that their proposed N5 per litre of fuel tax will be resisted,” the CNPP said in a statement by its Secretary General, Willy Ezugwu, on Sunday.

It accused the National Assembly of taking more anti-people decisions than resolutions that could better the lives of the already impoverished masses of Nigeria and warned the Presidency against inflicting more pain on the people.

The CNPP argued that the National Roads Fund Bill if passed, would impose the controversial tax on Nigerians.

It said, “Our findings have shown that the bill titled ‘National Roads Fund (Establishment, etc) Bill 2017’, proposing that N5 to be paid per litre of fuel imported into the country is a ploy by the Federal Government to impose more hardship on Nigerians at a time the burden of recession in the country is becoming unbearable.

“We thought that the Federal Government should be thinking of reducing the already biting hardship in the country after failing to fulfil the promised increment in minimum wage and non-payment of arrears of workers’ salaries and allowances in the past two years.

“It seems that the current government at the federal level and their National Assembly collaborators enjoy inflicting more and more pains on Nigerian masses.

“We wonder why the Senate Committee on Works in its final report on the bill would make such proposal. Are they saying that the only way this government can raise funds is by increasing the pump price of petroleum prices and punishing the masses?”

Organised labour and the National Association of Nigerian Students had earlier condemned the plan, warning that they would resist any attempt to further hike the price of petroleum products.

“Members of the National Assembly should firstly sample the views of their constituencies before deliberating on such a bill, which to us is not going to be allowed to be part of the additional suffering of the people of this country,” the Secretary General of NANS, Mr Kahiru Mohammed, had said.