By 
Leader of the opposition in Zambian parliament Brian Mundubile has said the increase in the pump price of fuel will accelerate the suffering of majority Zambians.
The Patriotic Front (PF) presidential hopeful claimed that Zambians had now realised that the PF was truly a pro-poor party that protected citizens from untold misery.
He said the monthly reviews of fuel prices introduced by the new dawn government made it difficult to plan for the business community and ordinary citizens.
“If I took you back, the challenges we are facing today are the challenges we faced previous decades ago,” he said.
Mundubile said Zambia resolved fuel challenges through the construction of the 1,700 kilometre pipeline from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Ndola in Zambia and the Ndola Refinery.
“What these two facilities do is that they stabilise fuel prices and cushion the sudden changes in international oil prices or sudden changes in exchange rates,” he said.
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Mundubile observed that by removing Indeni and the pipeline from the equation, consumers have an adverse impact from fundamental factors that affect the fuel prices.
“I remember when I served as Energy Regulation Board (ERB) Board Chairperson, we were not reviewing prices frequently. We had what we called trigger point which was that fuel prices were increased by over 2.5 percent.
“So that 2.5 percent served as a cushion and you saw that fuel prices remained stable for a long time. It is indeed a source of concern,” he said.
Mundubile said the government should modernise Indeni so that it can move from only processing soft crude to also processing hard crude.
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