The upper chamber of the National Assembly resumed from a two month recess on Tuesday with the Senate President Bukola Saraki saying most Nigerians are not interested in who to blame for the current hardship being experienced in the land, and just want a way out.
In his opening speech, Saraki said: “people are not so interested in how we got here or who to blame for our current situation. They only want to know that government has plans to get them out of this current predicament.”
Speaking further, Saraki said: “It is no longer news, that the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that the Nigerian economy has drifted into recession. With GDP growth in the second quarter of 2016 at -2.06% following a decline of 0.36% in the first quarter, the Nigerian economy has had two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
“It is clear to me that when people are desperately hungry, what they need is leadership with a clear vision; leadership whose daily actions reflects the very urgency of the people’s condition.
“Therefore, our response to the current challenge must be dictated by the urgency of the hardship that the people suffer on a daily basis. I say this to urge us that we must have an urgent debate on the way forward.
“But in having this debate we must resist the temptation of drowning the debate with apportioning blames that will neither bring solutions to the problem or reduce the cost of rice, maize or cooking oil in the market. Rather, this debate must be solution-driven. It must be people-oriented and less political.”
He further stated that: “As I had mentioned earlier, on our part, we will do the following;
Go immediately to debate the state of the economy and come up with economic measures that we will submit to the Executive. This, we will do, along with passing the necessary legislation we have identified.
“I must hasten to add in my own opinion that the Executive must begin to take the following needful steps to show Nigerians, the international community and investors, both local and international, that we are ready to reform and do business.
“These are
I. The Executive must immediately put in place leadership-level engagement platform with the private sector. This must be one that is pro-business and shows unequivocally that government is ready to partner with the private sector towards economic revival. This is a critical signpost towards market confidence which is a key ingredient to help us revamp the economy out of recession
II. The Executive must raise capital from asset sales and other sources to shore up foreign reserves. This will calm investors, discourage currency speculation and stabilize the economy. The measures should include part sale of NLNG Holdings; reduction of government share in upstream oil joint venture operations; sale of government stake in financial institutions e.g. Africa Finance Corporation; and the privatization and concession of major/regional airports and refineries.
III. The Executive must consider tweaking the pension funds policy within international best practice safeguards to to accommodate investment in infrastructure and mortgages.
IV. The Executive and CBN must agree on a policy of monetary easing to stimulate the economy and harmonise monetary and fiscal policy until economic recovery is attained. We must ensure local government borrowing does not crowd out credit for the private sector.
V. The Executive must re-tool its export promotion policy scheme with export incentives such as the resumption of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG); and introduce export-financing initiatives.
VI. The Executive is urged to engage in meaningful dialogue with those aggrieved in the Niger Delta and avoid an escalation of the conflict in the region. The National Assembly is very ready to play any role in the process and offer ideas on approaches that will deliver quick win-win in order to move the region and the economy forward.
VII. The Executive must as a deliberate response consider immediate release of funds to ensure the implementation of the budget for the near short term to inject money into the economy.
VIII. Similarly, the agricultural sector and the agro-allied businesses should be directly supported to boost value addition and job creation.
IX. While government works on the medium to long-term plans, immediate strategies must be devised that would ease the suffering of the ordinary people across our country. In this case, particular attention should be given to our citizens in IDP camps. The images emerging from this zone of deprivation and hunger is no longer acceptable. Government should accelerate interim measures to provide social safety-nets to our people and assuage current high level of misery in the land. Such intervention should seek to fully execute the social spending framework already provided in the 2016 budget.
X. Distinguished colleagues, on our own part, we must turn our attention towards a number of legislative priorities such as the Petroleum Industry Bills. We must ensure the passage of the PIB as soon as possible to stimulate new investment and boost oil revenue. As we all know, this bill is long in waiting and is very crucial for vital investment in the oil and gas sector. The impasse of not passing the bill is doing great harm to the industry and the Nigerian economy as a whole.
XI. Mortgages remain key for us in the National Assembly and we will immediately begin the process of accelerating bills aimed at reforming the sub-sector for growth and accessibility in a manner that deepens our people’s access to housing, jobs and economic activities that can inject fresh funds into this sector.
XII. There is the National Development Bank of Nigeria (est. etc) Bill 2015, which will provide long term, cheaper source of funds to the private sector.
XIII. There are also the Nigerian Ports and Harbours Authority Act (Amendment) Bill 2016; National Road Fund (Establishment, etc); National Transport Commission Act 2001; Warehouse Receipts Act Bill 2016; Review of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), Investment and Securities Act (ISA) and Customs and Excise Management Act; Federal Competition Bill 2016; and the National Road Authority. In my view, these bills and some of the other economic reform bills we will be considering in the coming days will be critical in the creation of a basic framework to free up capital and provide the opportunities to get us out of this recession.
XIV. We must also explore the possibility of backing certain key government policies with legislations that have time limitations. This will help give confidence to investors to go into certain areas of the economy and invest without the fear that such policies will suffer reversals and their investments lost. This is especially important in boosting investment in agriculture and minerals; which are critical segments of the new diversified Nigerian economy.
Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/saraki-nigerians-only-interested-in-way-out-of-recession-not-past-leaders-mistakes
