By Ehichioya Ezomon
FOR far too long, Nigerians have given officials of government, especially members of the National Assembly, a pass to ride roughshod on the populace. And they have seized on that leeway to churn out laws, policies and programmes that keep the masses perpetually on the back foot.
The latest of such unbridled look-down on the people is the recommendation by the Senate Committee on Works for a N5 levy on every litre of fuel imported into the country, and on locally refined products.
The recommendation and associated charges come at a time most Nigerians are down and out due to an excruciating economic recession that has lasted more than the timeline the government promised to roll it back.
Hence, reactions are coming in torrents, and anger is building in the organised labour, civil society organisations and student groups – all girding their loins for possible resistance to the bill.
Caught with their hands down their pants, the Senate is equivocating, and denying planning to levy the people anew, with Senate President Bukola Saraki joining the fray to smoothen things for the institution that he superintends.
Speaking in Ilorin the other day, he said the Roads Fund bill, fashioned because of inadequate funds for road projects across the country, was the outcome of a public hearing, which involved stakeholders from the road and transport industry.
“One of the conditions attached to the new charges by all stakeholders was that this N5 should not be an increase, but come from what already exists,” he said.
“Nigerians should be reassured that… the committee’s report came with a clear proviso: that the N5 should come from a restructuring of the existing template, which is reshuffling the taxes in the current N145 (per litre of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol), so that N5 out of this will always be pushed to develop existing roads and build new ones.”
However, to discerning, and not-so-discerning minds alike, the bill, among the 11 proposed bills by the Senate for a quick recovery from the prevailing economic recession, would make end users of fuel to bear the burden of the N5 levy and sundry charges and surcharges on the nation’s highways.
Besides, it may be the next road to Golgotha – a roundabout way to introduce a new pump price regime at the filling stations.
If you doubt these assumptions, let’s take a closer look at the main provisions in the bill, on which the Senator Kabiru Gaya-headed committee based its recommendation, and which the House of Representatives has reportedly adopted.
They include: A fuel levy of N5 chargeable per litre on any volume of petrol and diesel products imported into Nigeria and on locally refined petroleum products; axle load control charges; toll fees (a percentage not exceeding 10% of any revenue paid as user charge per vehicle on any federal road designated as a toll road (this is not applicable to PPP roads); international vehicle transit charges; inter-state mass transit user charge of 0.5% deductible from the fare paid by passengers to commercial mass transit operators on inter-state roads; roads fund surcharge of 0.5% chargeable on the assessed value of any vehicle imported at any time into Nigeria; lease, license or other fees which shall be 10% of the revenue accruing from lease or license or other fees pertaining to non-vehicular road usages along any federal road and collected by the federal roads agency; and grants and loans, and gifts of land, money or other property.”
A correct reading and proper interpretation of these provisions of the bill indicates that road users will not only pay extras for fuel, but also for transportation, purchase of vehicles, usage of motor parks and lay-bys, and for any other amenities road agencies may fancy to so levy.
Already, there appears a red flag about the intent of the fund, viewed from the nature of its “high levels of independence” under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Finance, “which will only oversee the fund for policy direction.”
The caveat comes from this proposition: “The National Roads Fund will be excluded from the Consolidated Revenue Fund and Treasury Single Account,” says the Senate committee report.
There we go! Isn’t the fund being established as a cesspool of corruption if the monies collected do not go into the Consolidated Revenue Fund and the TSA? Where is accountability here?
Is the Federal Government with the National Assembly on this contentious issue, or it’s entirely the business of the Legislature, which, in its attempt to find ways of getting the economy out of the woods, may inadvertently drag the Executive into an accessory after the fact, and open it to unnecessary criticism?
Well, no one quarrels with the Senate, and the entire National Assembly for proffering solutions to the recession the country faces. But in doing so, the interest of Nigerians in general should be the guiding principle, which in the instant case, could never have been their consideration.
So, no matter the argument to the contrary, and the spin they put on the fund’s usefulness, the Senate committee’s recommendation must be seen and labelled for what it is: a reckless, provocative, vexatious and unconscionable proposal, whose fallout will ultimately be borne by an already impoverished and pummelled consuming public.
If they do not step back from this anti-people mission, and pull the offending aspects of the Road Funds bill, the Senate and its members would sooner find themselves out in the cold.
Apart from stirring a ‘people protest’ against the government, they would only do total damage to what remains of the image they’ve been trying to repair through recent legislation that shifted focus away from their political interest and survival to those of the masses they hold their mandate in trust.
* Mr. Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.