The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) has tasked the National Assembly on enacting proper laws that will remove the bottlenecks hindering the economic growth of the country and development generally.
The National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable of NSG led
by Tayo Adeloju gave the task during visit to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu in his office in Abuja on Thursday.
Adeloju said the economic situation of the economy was steady decline and in need of total overhaul, stressing that the 10th Assembly has a crucial role to play in the revival of the nation’s economy.
“In the last eight years, we have been through two recessions, one pandemic that has left our country with 133 million poor people and an economy that desperately need restructuring.
“As you settle down to work for the next four years, we must push laws that allows microeconomics stability to happen, we must push laws that put binding constrains on investments coming to stay in Nigeria.
“We must allow laws that allow for inclusive participation in our economy and economic system and we must remove the old legislative legal gridlock that has made major sectors of our economy,-transportation, infrastructure, power etc not reach their height,” he said.
Adeloju assured Kalu of NESG’s co-operation with the National Assembly to put in place appropriate legislations, saying the group has about 3000 volunteers that are willing and available to work with House Committees.
“Partnership is what we seek because when we work together, we work faster. There are very difficult issues to debate if Nigeria must move forward. Call us anytime and there will a cream of Nigerians ready to work to deliver a country of our dreams.
“In 2015 we unanimously agreed that the survival of the economy should be built around legislation. So from 2016 to date, the NESG has convened specific legislative sessions to give impetus to the fact that there is no economic growth without legislative involvement.
We think that this 10th Assembly can play basketball crucial role in the growth of the economy.”
In his response, Deputy Speaker Kalu assured the group that assured that the National Assembly, particularly the House will prioritise laws that would have positive impact on the socioeconomic life of the country.
He said the kind of growth envisaged by the NESG cannot be achieved if the bills and motions in the National Assembly were not tailored towards that goal.
Kalu said the 10th Assembly will ensure that they are not judged only by the number or bills the pass, but also by the social impact of such pieces of legislations.
“You have decided to come at the formative stage of the 10th Assembly so that whatever comes out is going to reflect on the legislative instrument we are going to use.
“The 10th Assembly is currently cooking it’s legislative agenda and one of the key issues we will be prioritising is the issue of economy of the nation. I saw you highlighting the issue of Executive/Legislative relationship and the key policy issues and bills that should take the centre stage.
“The thinking is that the core thinking of the current administration is national objectives and since we have studied the key objective of the administration, it is our mindset that though we are three arms of government, we are one government.
“So, if the national objective is about improving the nation and it’s people, all we have to do in partnership with strategic stakeholders is to push out legislative interventions in motions and bills that will help them get that done.
“The 10th Assembly will not only be interested in bills and motions. We will be looking at transformational bills that will impact positively on the business environment so that it become better than we met it, bills that will enable the Nigeria Commonwealth which we are committed to, ” he said.
