By Ebitonye Akpodigha
Nigeria’s Senate President, Mr Bukola Saraki, has disclosed that the upper chamber of the National Assembly has identified 11 bills to be passed into law to end the present economic recession in the country.
Mr Saraki, in an interview with Bloomberg in Abuja on Thursday, noted that the Senate was poised to pass laws to help revive the economy.
“We have 11 bills that we have identified as bills that we need to pass to get the economy up and running,” the Senate President told Bloomberg in the interview.
“We are looking at how the private sector can take major trunk roads away from government, how the railway too can be taken away from government,” he said.
According to the Senate President, “The most important thing is for us to continue to bring confidence back into the economy on the short-term.”
He assured that the Senate would work with the executive to see how to reflate the country’s economy.
Mr Saraki said both monetary and fiscal authorities also need to work together to achieve macro-economic stability and enable a free-floating foreign-exchange regime, so that the local currency, which is “undervalued,” finds its real value and wins investor confidence, Bloomberg reports.
Nigeria would need $3.1 trillion over the next three decades to cover existing infrastructure deficits, with half of the funding expected from private investors, according to its Budget and Planning Ministry, the reputable platform added.
And Mr Saraki believes “it’s clear government can’t fund them even if the crude price hadn’t dropped this much,” suggesting that “if we can address the infrastructure shortfall, that way, we’ll bring real productivity to the country.”
It would be recalled that at the 22nd Edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja earlier this month, Mr Saraki had also told the audience that the 8th Senate would pass 11 Bills before the end of 2016 that will tackle the economic recession.