Residents of Port Harcourt City and its environs have condemned the N5.00 tax per litre of imported fuel being advocated by the Senate.
Some of the residents who spoke to our correspondent said such idea was an expression of insensitivity to the current economic reality in Nigeria .
A petroleum Products dealer,  Chief Johnson Udo, said “the N5.00 tax in its totality is wrong if you consider what the common man is facing in the country at the moment.
Adding N5.00 tax per litre of imported product would lead to increase in the product since the importers who are in business to make profit will equally increase the cost of a litre to  cover up the tax”.
Another respondent, Mr Clement Emem, wondered why the senate should depend on petroleum to solve all Nigeria’s problems even at the present period when emphasis has been on diversification.
Emem, who noted that he was not against the idea of sourcing fund to fix the poor roads across the nation, rather suggested that one per cent tax should be levied on the income of every rich Nigerian, especially politicians.
“Let those senators and other rich Nigerians pay extra one per cent of their income to raise the fund to fix the roads because they are responsible for the economic challenges affecting the nation”, he said.
For Mr Bon Obilo, a public analysist, the senators’ idea does not amount to anything giving that the economy of the nation is too bad as a result of recession and any idea that will in any way add extra burden on the purse of the common man must be rejected..
“Adding N5.00 tax per litre of imported petroleum product will mean adding more to the cost of a litre sold and this will be unfair.
“The timing is wrong, the idea in itself does not portray the senators as those living in the present time with other Nigerians.
A teacher, Mrs  Jane Okolo, expressed disappointment with the senators’ idea and called on Nigerians to stand against any such more that will increase economic hardship on Nigerians .
“The senators should rather find out how all the budgetary allocations for repair of roads was spent and deal with those who stole those fund meant for road maintenance instead of increasing pains on Nigerians.
“They are there in the upper chambers to find out how our money has been stolen to big politicians and their friends in business.
The other day the news was that  several hundreds of billions of naira were fraudulently stolen in Niger Delta Ministry and the money was meant for roads and other development projects.
Senators should think of how to recover those monies from those holding them. Good number of them in the senate are therefore two or three terms, they should know their jobs better and leave Nigerians alone,”  she said.
A transporter, Usoro Mike, said the senate should look beyond oil and gas in sourcing for fund to fix the roads but to rather investigate where the budget for road rehabilitations has been going.
“Each year, huge budget is allocated for road maintenance but yet in every part of the country, especially in south south and south east geo-political zones, the situation of roads is worse.
Who and who have been stealing this fund. There was a period a former contractor and big politician was said to have stolen hundreds of billions of naira meant for road projects.
Let the senators find out what  happened  to those allocations and retrieve them from those holding them and leave oil alone. It is their job to help the executive arm recover our stolen wealth and use it to fix the roads”, Mike said.

Chris Oluoh