The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the Senate to assert its independence by not passing Value Added Tax (VAT) increase Bill.
PDP in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Friday in Abuja, described the VAT increase Bill as anti-people.
The party expressed concerns that the bill has been hurriedly passed through second reading in the Senate even when the details were allegedly not made available to lawmakers.
It said the failure to avail the details of the bill to the lawmakers confirms its toxicity to the polity.
The statement read in part: “The party invites the Senate leadership to bear in mind that Nigerians have rejected the bill, which is designed by the Buhari presidency to increase VAT from 5 per cent to excruciating 7.5 per cent not minding its attendant adverse economic effect on Nigerians.
“Such planned increase in VAT is insensitive, suppressive and if anything, will further impoverish Nigerians and worsen the prevailing agonizing economic situation in the country.
“The National Assembly, as the true representatives of the people at the federal level, should therefore protect Nigerians by ensuring that such an anti-people policy does not receive a final legislative stamp.
In a related development, the party has asked the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, to resign immediately and apologize to Nigerians over his unpardonable comment that the terrible state of roads in the nation was being exaggerated.
PDP described the statement as, &unfortunate, especially coming from the Minister of Works, who ought to be apologetic for the decrepit state of roads across the country since the last four years he has been minister.”
The party said: “The statement is a violent assault on the sensibility of over 200 million Nigerians and further demonstrates the disdain with which the Buhari administration holds our citizens who lost their lives and many more that daily undergo mental and physical torture using our dilapidated roads.
“Every Nigerian knows that most of the major roads across the country are in sorry state and that travelling on our roads has become traumatizing and one of the highest life-threatening experiences in our country since the last four years.
“The comment by the minister of works is therefore highly provocative and capable of invoking the anger of Nigerians because it shows that either he has not been going through our roads and as such not in touch with reality or he has exposed himself as a falsehearted official.”
