The question on why Government had increased fuel tax by 20 cents in its COVID-19 Response Budget was raised in Parliament last Friday.
National Federation Party (NFP) leader Prof Biman Prasad said Government had increased the tax on fuel in a very “cryptically manner”.
“In fact they increased it by 20 cents … and in fact if you are looking at a stimulus budget, why do you want to raise the tax when the world market price was going down,” he said.
“They should have passed it on to the consumers so when they went and said, ‘We are reducing the price’, actually the diesel and petrol prices should have been reduced by another 20cent.
“It was done in quite a cryptically manner and the Government may try to hide that and so perhaps the Government needs to consider that as well.”
Prof Biman highlighted this when he was speaking on excise taxes.
