Senate President Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki today Monday, 5th, June 2017 inaugurated the Steering Committee and National Technical Committee and also presented the Annual Report of NASSBER (National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable).
Speaking on the occasion of NASSBER’s one-year anniversary and annual dialogue, Bukola Saraki disclosed that the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable was formed to end the departure from an era where salient discussions and reports compiled are left unattended to at the end of such dialogue. Noting that the NASSBER has been able to step up to bridge the gap and impact real changes.
Recognizing the major challenges in doing business in Nigeria, Saraki stated that our biggest task is to strengthen the private sector with NASSBER as a tool for mobilizing the private sector to achieve the desired results.
“Once this is established, it will be easier to create more jobs for our people and make businesses much more attractive” Saraki said.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki noted that the National Assembly has put together six (6) important reform bills to help revamp infrastructure deficit. These Bills include; the Nigerian Railway Bill, the Nigerian Ports and Harbour Bill, the National Road Funds Bill, the National Transport Commission Bill, the National Inland Waterways Bill and the Federal Road Bill. He called for less dependency on the Government to drive development through the private sector participation; a reason he attributed for the creation of enabling environment to improve businesses.
“Important Bills that impact businesses directly have been passed while others will be passed before the end of this session, these bills I believe when signed into law would help our credibility in doing business” Saraki stated.
The Chairman of the National Assembly while responding to questions from a cross section of the participants spoke on the implementation of the Made In Nigeria campaign and urged for more support to the committees and proper usage of channels for feedback and proper implementation. He emphasized that the Legislature and Executive relationship remains cordial, he referenced how both arms of government worked together to expedite action on the speedy passage of the Credit Bureau services Bill and Secured transaction Bill in order to allow the Executive meet up with deadline for approval ratings.
Speaking further, the distinguished Senate President also called for vigilance in regional integration and trade economy sabotage disguised as economic integration among the ECOWAS Countries.
Saraki said: “We have a problem and we need to sit and look at them. We have to look at ECOWAS policies and regulation carefully before we sign things that are not in our interest”.
The high point of the event was the inauguration of the technical committee
Finally, the Senate President inaugurated the steering committee and the national technical committee of #NASSBER and presided over the recognition ceremony of NASSBER contributors. He thanked everyone who has been a part of the progress and commended them for their commitment and steadfastness to the success of NASSBER.
