Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has reacted to reports about likely fuel hike, saying they were orchestrated against the red chamber.
He said the story must have been taken from the report of a public hearing on road maintenance, which suggested taxing the existing templates of internal inflow, such that it would not affect the pump price of petroleum or the end users.
Saraki recalled that the public hearing reports identified some of the steady inflow from the ports in terms of charges, from where some bits could be taken, adding that the overriding instruction was that the N5.00 must not reflect on the pump price or passed down to the consumer in whatever way.
“I am surprised therefore that anybody would take such a report and turned it on its head. Do I call that lazy journalism or what? The report is so false and wicked that you can’t but see the sinister intention in it.
“The charge to maintain road is in no way a concern to the public because it would not be passed down to them,” he told Thisday.
“But because anything that is anti-senate sells quickly, nobody bothered to find out the true picture and the negative report sold like wildfire, when indeed, it was the imagination of the writers and possibly their sponsors.
“Whatever this Senate does, even if it appears in the estimation of our critics as anti-people, is done first with the interest of the people factored critically into accounts. We set out ab initio to protect our people and their interest and that has remained our guiding principle.
“We will not depart from it. Now ask yourself, on what basis will an increase in the pump price of fuel be justified at this period, when you consider the state of the economy?
“Maybe those who sold the story and their sponsors would have an answer. We are not insensate representatives and if that is the impression that some out there want registered in the subconscious of the people about the senate, then, they will try harder.
“Check out our records and genuinely analyse them, we have consistently been pro-masses of this great country and that is not going to change”, he added.
Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) had criticised the proposed N5 petrol levy, calling it a huge joke.
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