Bukola Saraki, president of the
Nigerian senate, says one comma, one semicolon, should not stop the level of
investments that could come into the country’s petroleum sector.
Speaking at the 24th Nigerian
Economic Summit in Abuja on Monday, Saraki said the eight assembly has been
focused on passing economic bills, which would drive the economy.
He added that the assembly could
have done more if it had the full support of the executive arm of government.
“We have bills that we have sent
to the executive that have come back with one observation or comment,” Saraki
said.
“The petroleum industry bill is a
good example; that should have been an executive bill because of the importance
of that bill to the economy, no doubt about that.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t, we
took the responsibility to drive that bill to a place it had never been before
over the decades. A lot of people when we started said we could not do it, but
we’ve shown we had the political will and commitment to do it.
“We split it into four, and we
passed the first one and it went to the executive. What I would have expected
considering the kind of work that was done, was for the two arms of government
to sit down and because the issues that have been raised are not issues that
should stop a bill from passing with all due respect.
“Unfortunately, after so many
months, that bill has come back with queries that I think can easily be
thrashed out in a day’s session.”
Saraki said the players in the
petroleum industry have asked that since the government could not agree on the
governance bill, how would it agree on the fiscal bill?
“Our intentuon is to go back to
the executive and sit down with them and say, let us drop our partisan hats and
look in the interest of Nigeria.
“It has taken a lot of powers
from the executive and given more powers t the technocrats, which is what is
good to make it more transparent.
“The observations made, I don’t
think are enough to stop that bill from passing, because of the impact it will
make in investment, because as you know, there is no serious invvestment in the
petroleum sector because people are not sure where they are.
“We have a great opportunity
because when we started, prices of crude oil was in the 50s, now it is in the
80s, you have problems in places like Venezuela, Iran — I mean it is a golden
opportunity for Nigeria to take advantage.
“I don’t think paragragph two,
three, one comma, one semicolon here and there should prevent this level of
investment. It is a great opportunity for investment, and if we didn’t get it
right, I think it is to lock ourselves up in a room and sit down and address those
issues.”
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