Senate proposes N5/litre increase on petroleum products to fund road projects

The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FGN) has proposed an increase of N5 per litre of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petroleum and other petroleum products for the funding of road projects in the country.
The proposal which is contained in the report of the Senate Committee on Works on the Bill to establish National Roads Fund will also affect other petroleum products, such as diesel and kerosene.
The committee, chaired by Senator Kabiru Gaya, said that the Executive arm of government should impose a fuel levy of N5 per litre of Premium Motor Spir­it (PMS), as a major source of revenue for funding the Fund.
In its report on the National Roads Fund (Establishment etc) Bill 2017, which is currently before the Senate for passage, further recommended other levies and taxes to enable the government finance the Roads Fund when established.
The committee is made up of 15 members, of whom 12 of them signed the document and three, who are probably out of the country, did not append their signatures to it.
The N5 fuel levy is chargeable per litre on any volume of petrol and diesel products imported into Nigeria and on locally refined petroleum products.
Other charges, which the committee recommended to form part of sources of revenue for the National Roads Fund are axle load control charge; toll fees (a percentage not exceeding 10 per cent of any revenue paid as user charge per vehicle on any federal road to Public-Private Partnership (PPP) roads.
The commission is also to be funded through International Vehicle Transit Charges; Inter-State Mass Transit User charge of 0.5 per cent deductible from fare paid by passengers to commercial mass tran­sit operators on inter-state roads.
Other sources of funds for the National Roads Fund are roads fund surcharge of 0.5 per cent chargeable on the assessed value of any vehicle imported at any time into Nigeria.
Furthermore, the Fund shall be managed through lease, license or other fees which shall be 10 per cent of the revenue accruing from the lease or license or other fees pertaining to non-vehicular road usages on any federal road and collected by the Federal Roads Agency; grants and loans and gifts of land, money or other property.
In the report, the committee recommended that the National Roads Fund should be under the Federal Ministry of Finance which will only oversee the Fund for policy direction, stressing that it should enjoy high level of inde­pendence.
It further recommended that a hybrid approach to board membership should be adopted with a high level of stakeholder and private sector membership.
Other recommendations read: “the National Roads Fund shall set aside an amount not exceeding 3 per cent of the total monies accruing to it in the preceding year as Administrative Fund.
The report was to go through a clause-by-clause consideration before final passage by the Upper Chamber on Thursday but was stood down for another leg­islative day.