Senate President Bukola Saraki and the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele at a function recently
OrderPaperToday – Senate President Bukola Saraki today led the Senate in recommending solutions to the Executive towards saving Nigeria’s economy from deeper recession.
In his welcome back speech to fellow Senators on the National Assembly’s resumption today, Saraki said he believes that Nigeria “can make the recession we face today the shortest in our history and use the lessons coming out of it to consolidate our development. But it all starts now, if we all can believe.”
The Senate President reminded the legislators that they “are in this together with the Executive and the Judiciary, we cannot afford to fail Nigerians. My expectation is that by the time we are done with our debate we should make key actionable recommendations to the Executive on what this chamber sees as the way forward in the immediate, mid term and long term solutions to this economic situation.”
In his recommendations, Saraki said “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.”
He continued with the following suggestions for the Presidency.
“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 eg. Africa Finance Corporation; and the privatization and concession of major/regional airports and refineries.
“The Executive must consider tweaking the pension funds policy within international best practice safeguards to to accommodate investment in infrastructure and mortgages.
“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.”
The speech continued with more suggestions for the Executive.
“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.
“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.
“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,” he said.
Here is a rundown of more recommendations.
“The agricultural sector and the agro-allied businesses should be directly supported to boost value addition and job creation.
“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.”
The Senate President concluded by assuring the Executive that the Senate “will work in concert, not at cross-purposes. Our goal is clear; to work together with the Executive to get our economy out of recession. We will proffer our solutions on policy issues, and where necessary enact necessary legislation to ensure that investor confidence returns to the market.”
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