"With BBI, fuel prices will rise further," Senator Kang'ata says

Murang'a County Senator Irungu Kang'ata now says that Kenyans will have to grapple with even higher fuel prices in future because of BBI.

Senator Kang'ata says when the BBI Constitutional (Amendment) Bill, 2020 will be passed and implemented, Kenyans will have to dig deeper to buy fuel products.

According to Kang'ata, increasing the number of MPs to about 600, one of the BBI Bill proposals, will lead to a rise in taxes, and in turn a rise in fuel prices.

"Taxes are a major component of fuel prices. With BBI proposing an expanded parliament comprised of about 600 members, taxes will rise, and fuel prices rise further," said Kang'ata.

The senator could not fathom how Kenya, a country of only 52 million people would have more MPs, while China with a 1.4 billion population has 2,000 MPs.

He alleged that with taxes influencing fuel prices, BBI will burden Kenyans further.

There has been a public outcry over the new fuel prices announced on Saturday.

According to EPRA, a litre of super petrol in Nairobi rose by KSh7.63, that of Diesel by KSh5.75 and KSh5.41 for Kerosene.

This means that Super petrol retails at KSh122.81, diesel at KSh107.66, and Kerosene at KSh97.85 per litre in Nairobi.

ODM party has also protested the new fuel prices, terming the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority(EPRA) as insensitive towards the already strained Kenyans.

"Whereas we understand the urgent need to raise some taxes to cover government operations also crippled by the pandemic, we can't see the moral grounding on which to levy more taxes on a population itself on its knees from the same," says ODM.

ODM wants the petroleum regulatory authority to revoke the prices which took eefect Monday.