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Tag: NASS

  • 2019: APC mediates in Presidency, NASS rift

    The leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) has resolved to constitute a committee to look into differences between the Executive and the National Assembly and proffer solution to the matter.

    The resolution, according to the Leader of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, was fallout of a meeting between the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and the APC Caucus in the Senate, held in Abuja on Wednesday.

    Lawan told journalists after the meeting that membership of the committee would be drawn from the Executive, Legislature, the Governors’ Forum and the party’s National Secretariat.

    He said the team the team was charged with the responsibility of reducing the level of misunderstanding among members of the party across board.

    Lawan said the committee would investigate the disagreements at different levels of the party ahead of the 2019 general election.

    He said: “The purpose of the meeting was to discuss happenings in the party across the country and across all levels of government.

    “Senators took turn to express the way out of some of the issues bedeviling the party and I believe that it was a worthwhile, very frank discussion.

    “The party will soon constitute a team that will comprise of the executive, the legislature, the party itself and representatives from our governors and we have 24 of them.

    “We are very happy as a caucus that the interaction was worthwhile and I am sure that our party was also glad to be here with us this afternoon.

    “We, as members of the National Assembly will remain committed to ensuring that we continue to support the change agenda of our administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    “The party is the platform for all of us, both the legislative and executive and in my own view, the party has done well by coming.”

    In his remarks before the commencement of the closed-door meeting, the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie- Oyegun, said the meeting was aimed at discussing issues in the polity.

    He said happenings within the polity necessitated the party leadership to meet with the Senate caucus “to reason and strategise for 2019 elections.

    “We hope to have a better party after the meeting,” he said.

    The NWC was led to the meeting by Odigie-Oyegun while President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, led the APC Senate Caucus to the meeting which lasted two and half hours at the National Assembly.

    NAN

     

     

     

  • Akerele urges NASS to review gender rights bill

    A Former Director-General of the Nigeria Chambers of Shipping (NCS), Mrs. Ifeyinwa Akerele, has appealed to the National Assembly to review the Gender Rights Bill to give women their rightful position in the society.

    She spoke at a briefing organised by the MMS Woman of Fortune Hall of Fame (WoFHoF) Initiative, to mark the 2018 International Women’s Day.

    According to her, women were still seen as second-class citizens despite their contributions to the growth of society.

    She urged women to stay relentless in their efforts towards building a better society, saying they were sources of inspiration to the younger generation.

    Akerele said: “Women’s Day is set aside to recognise women for the critical roles they play in the society, celebrate their successes, and inspire and inform the struggling ones that hope is not lost.”

    Chief Executive Officer of WoFHoF Initiative Kingsley Anaroke said disparity had become a key determinant of economic and social advancement of countries. This makes a case for advocacy for greater diversity, women representation and inclusion across all meaningful and sustainable activities more pressing now,” he said.

    As part of the activities marking the International Women’s Day, the

    MMS WoFHoF Initiative is unveiling some heroines in an inspiration-packed documentary juxtaposing the strong and the weak as a tool for knowledge management to advance the cause of gender equality and women empowerment

     

  • NASS must exercise override powers circumspectly

    REPORTs indicate that the National Assembly (NASS) may be preparing to override the president’s veto of some 10 bills, among which, significantly, is the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill. The president has reportedly also rejected the amendments to the Electoral Act, citing three objections. Combatively, the NASS has indicated that it will override the president’s veto if it is not convinced that the president’s objections are valid. Just like the president has the right to veto bills, the NASS also has constitutional right to override the president’s veto, subject to constitutional provisions. The legislature has signalled its readiness to exercise that right in the coming months.

    The NASS must, however, proceed cautiously and circumspectly. In fulfilling its mandate to make laws, and despite the executive’s sometimes confrontational and overbearing approach to governance, the parliament must carefully examine the president’s objections and ask themselves whether those objections do not contain great merit. More importantly, even in their combativeness, the legislature must learn to draw a line between bills and amendments that require no administrative and financial outlays and those which do.

    Two examples illustrate these vital distinctions. One is the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill, which the president thoughtfully suggested was a duplication of the roles and functions of existing security and law enforcement agencies. The president also indicated that given the tight financial position of the country, it would be unwise at the moment to engage in fresh and needless spending and expansion of the bureaucracy. Already, the government is unduly financially exposed. To override the president’s veto is to disconcertingly suggest that the legislature will somehow fish for the needed funds and proceed to set up the bureaucracy for the new organisation. Short of usurping the functions of the executive, it is not clear how the parliament hopes to achieve this.

    Second is the Electoral Act amendment. This of course requires no financial outlay of any kind. It is simply a rearrangement of existing functions by an existing agency, INEC. The president cited three objections; the NASS saw merit in two of them. It hopes to rework and return the bill to the president for assent. There is no reason to withhold assent if the president does not nurse some ulterior motives. After all, no matter the order of the 2019 elections, as the bill has reordered, if the president is sure of his popularity, he should not entertain any fear that he could be unhorsed. The NASS, despite its own egregious shortcomings, has so far incidentally helped to restrain the boisterous and sometimes anti-democratic executive. It should however moderate its activism by overriding only those bills that do not needlessly encroach on the functions of the executive.

  • Election sequence and NASS veto threat

    My writing to both chambers of the National Assembly to express his reservations about the Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill, President Muhammadu Buhari has, effectively vetoed the bill. Consequently, the National Assembly is now left to override the veto by two-thirds of its members at separate sittings.

    There is no doubt that the nation is about to witness another executive-legislature face-off in constitution reviews, amendments of Acts of Parliament and law-making process where the executive arm of government feels its interest is threatened by the spirit and the letter of the proposed laws or amendments. To be sure, the National Assembly has performed its constitutional function in the circumstance to the dissatisfaction of the incumbent head of the executive arm.

    Historically, if the National Assembly, under Bukola Saraki’s chairmanship, pursues the override option and goes ahead successfully, it would be the second time that the National Assembly would override presidential veto in the nation’s Fourth Republic.  The first was on June 7, 2000 when the National Assembly, under the chair of Anyim Pius Anyim, overrode President Olusegun Obasanjo’s veto of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Establishment Bill.

    In terms of aggregative national interest, the reservations expressed by Obasanjo were in apple-pie order.  It was difficult to understand how the objections he raised could have been in furtherance of his personal or pecuniary interest, although his objections were mainly on the proposed funding components of the NDDC.

    While the National Assembly proposed that 15 percent of federal government’s monthly statutory allocations be contributed to the funding of the commission, Obasanjo wanted it reduced to 10 percent. He also wanted the three percent annual budget of all oil and gas companies operating in the Niger Delta region proposed by the National Assembly as the companies’ funding contribution to the commission reduced to 1.5 percent.

    Whereas, Obasanjo wanted member states of the NDDC to contribute 10 percent of their derivation funds to funding the commission, the National Assembly dropped that proposal. When the totality of these proposals was subjected to critical scrutiny for underlying interests, neither Obasanjo nor the National Assembly could be essentially indicted.

    But this cannot be said of the current face-off, which centres significantly on the reordering of the sequence of elections as reflected in section 25 of the Electoral Act as amended.  This is because this provision affects whether positively or negatively, the political interests of the president and the federal legislators.  Understandably, INEC, being an agency of the executive arm, even though it is claiming to be independent, has acted in cahoots with the Presidency to decide the sequence of elections in 2019.

    The commission, in a bid to foist a fait accompli on the nation and perhaps to blackmail the National Assembly, decided to hurriedly fix and release the dates and sequence of elections for the next 35 years or thereabouts, specifically from 2019 to 2055. This is sui generis and curious administrative projection in the annals of public administration in Nigeria. The electoral body choreographed that gambit amid moves by the National Assembly to whittle down its administrative and discretionary powers which it had used to functionally deal with ordering the poll sequence in the purest form of exercise of delegated powers.

    With my little knowledge of elementary government and administrative law, there are limitations to the exercise of delegated powers which are the kinds that the INEC, as a so-called independent agency of the executive arm of government, exercises in conduct of elections within the strictest construction and understanding of the provisions of the extant Electoral Act passed by the National Assembly.

    No one is in doubt as to the fact that there is power separation among the three arms of government.  And, in order to curtail the excesses of one arm in the discharge of its function, there is in-built principle of checks and balances.  What the National Assembly has done with respect to the amendment of the Electoral Act is to check the excesses and near monstrosity of INEC in the discharge of its delegated administrative power with respect to conduct of elections.

    National Assembly has not tinkered with the general time-table that the INEC has drawn up. What it has simply done by its amendment is to reorder the sequence of election for the observance and necessary administrative action by the commission, still within the time table.  In the national interest, nothing could be said to be wrong on the face of the initial ordering by INEC and the subsequent reordering by the National Assembly.

    But in the individual interests of the political actors, a whole lot is perceivably wrong.  For Buhari to reject the well-considered proposal of the National Assembly that shifted the presidential election to the last in the poll sequence is nothing but resorting to bully tactics.  In any case, that is unfortunately indicative of a synergy between the Presidency and the INEC to possibly force the INEC’s original poll sequence on the nation.

    The federal legislators, apparently, do not want the bandwagon effects of the outcome of the presidential election of one man to affect the subsequent election of many others; and, therefore, the polls should end with the presidential election.

    Why does Buhari want the presidential and National Assembly election to start first? Perhaps two reasons could be adduced. That he probably does not want to spend his personal or federal government’s money on election mobilization, comfortable and assured that National Assembly candidates contesting on the APC platform would be the ones to spend their money to mobilise for votes for the party.

    Second, that if the presidential election is a stand-alone process that comes up last, there is no guarantee that the elected members of the APC would be committed to his electoral battle.

    This is the intersection where the federal lawmakers must show audacity to override Buhari’s veto.  They must push through the imperativeness of the reordered election sequence in the overall national interest. The presidential election should be held last. Who says the sequence of elections must follow the pattern of 2015 or 2011 general elections?  The sequence is not cast in stone.

    National consciousness and consensus should be built around the presidential election coming last in the sequence.  Apart from the presidential election, which has the entire nation as the constituency of the candidates, every other election is local to the extent that it is delimited or delineated by state boundaries for governorship election; state constituencies for House of Assembly elections; federal constituencies for House of Representatives elections; and senatorial zones for elections to the upper chamber of the National Assembly.

    The time for political pragmatism that does not confer undue electoral advantages on anyone, especially a sitting president, is now.

     

    • Ojeifo sent this piece via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com 
  • NASS, Executive feud slowed down governance process – Buhari

    NASS, Executive feud slowed down governance process – Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday blamed the standoff between the Executive and the National Assembly for the failure of government to deliver on its mandate as it has slowed down the process of governance in the country. 

    The President who spoke at the National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) however said the government was working hard to resolve the differences between the Executive and the National Assembly so that the country can move forward.

    Buhari acknowledge that the government has not met the expectations of many members of the party, but was quick to add that a few Nigerians however appreciate the depth of the wrath in the country when the APC took over government.

    He said: “I must acknowledge that the face of government has not met the expectations of many within our party. But few of us know or appreciated the depth of the wrath when we took office and that we spent the last two years bringing the country out of the mess we met it.

    “Furthermore, the standoff between the executive and the National Assembly slowed down the process of government. We are working hard to resolve the differences so that the country can move forward.

    The President paid tribute to the Nigerian people for massively support the government inspite of what he called distractions from proponents of business as usual.

    He said: “Nevertheless, I am not asking us to relax and take things easy. We all know that elections are looming in the horizon. We must therefore get our acts together. Accordingly, I implore all members of the party to give the Asiwaju committee full cooperation to resolve existing differences among our members in the states affected.

    “It is perhaps inevitable that there will be differences of opinion within the party. If we resolve them, then we can build a genuinely democratic party. But we must not lose sight of our common purpose as a party to break the mule of Nigerian politics and takes the country to new heights. Therefore, we have asked Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to lead this process of restoring order, manage differences and strengthen the party.”

    While expressing appreciation to the party leadership at all levels for service to the party, President Buhari said “In particular, I commend the National Chairman for steering the party from success to success. From our resounding election victory in 2015, we have won elections in Edo, Kogi and Ondo as well as the much improved performance in Anambra elections and the party has moved from the party in government to the party of the Nigerian people.

    “Much credit is due for our APC state chairmen for stabilizing the country and to our Armed forces and the police and other security agencies for stopping Boko Haram in the country and driving them from their bases. No country, no matter how well secured can isolate acts of terror as we have seen in the United States, Europe, Asia and here in Africa.

    “We must support our security agencies to safe guard our country so that the job of development as outlined in our manifesto can proceed without too much interruption. We cannot afford to fail in reminding Nigerians where we came from in 2015.

    “I am happy to report that slowly and steadily, we have managed to stabilize the country and redirect the ship of state. We have restored prudence to manage of resources and confidence in Nigeria has been restored.

    “On February 23, Nigeria floated a 12 year and 20 year Eurobond in the international market which were both oversubscribed. The 12 year bond was, within days over subscribed by 332 percent, while the 20 year bond was oversubscribed by 372 percent.

    “We have stabilize the naira and increase our foreign reserve from 20 billion dollars to 40 billion dollars. Inflation rate is down. With considerably less resources available to the country, we have improved all the indices towards a stronger economy.

    “Soon, primaries at the wards, local government, states and the Centre will soon be due. I urge all members to take account of the fact that APC has a history of conducting free and fair primaries whenever consensus about any position is not reached. Regardless of the outcome of the primary processes which is imperative, we should all work together to ensure victory for our party.”

    National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun said the party has a tough year ahead of it with the general election as well as governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states and appeal that party members do everything possible to minimize disputations within the party and do everything to ensure that the party is in fighting shape come 2019.

    “We obviously have a very tough year ahead of us. It is year of challenges, multiplicity of activities beginning from the month of April when the processes for replacing officers of the party whose tenure will expire by June, the process of conducting challenging elections in Ekiti in July, in Osun in September.

    “These elections are precursors of the national elections. It is therefore necessary that we treat them with great seriousness because they are elections we should do everything to win. They are signals and signposts, indicators of what is to come in 2019. Preparations are also well underway for those elections.

    “In an atmosphere like that, contests whether at party level or primaries to select candidates for all positions from the House of Assembly members to the exulted position of Mr. President always present challenges.

    “I want to make a passionate appeal that everything be done to minimize the stresses within the party. We must do everything to minimize the disputations within the party and do everything to ensure that we are in fighting shape come 2019.

    “For that reason, I want to say once more that we are fully behind and in support of the initiative taken by Mr. President in setting up a team headed by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to effect such a reconciliation that are necessary within the party.

    “We have had challenges; we have had storms and weathered the storms. We have a government that took over at a very difficult circumstances but today, we can proudly say that the basic foundation of a new Nigeria economy is finally in place.

    “We are not talking now of a foundation that is based on easy money, not a foundation based on crude which for a long time sent all of us to sleep but an economic foundation built on the sweat and labour, resources- material and otherwise, of the Nigerian people. That is the foundation that lasts. The economic indices tell a clear story”.

  • Aspirant condemns NASS on proposed bill on women

    Aspirant condemns NASS on proposed bill on women

    A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, Prof Olufunmilayo Adesanya-Davies has condemned the National Assembly’s recent bill to bar married from contesting elections or being appointed into political offices in their states of origin.

    The bill is an amendment that will prevent women who married outside their place of origin, from contesting elections or being appointed into political offices in their states of origin.

    She said that the review of terms of constitution need not be visited but should be maintained and to remain at status quo -ante.

    Adesanya- Davies added that the federal lawmakers in their bid to improve the laws through constitutional amendment should not be seen to be turning the clock anti-clockwise on their duty posts.

    She appealed to the state Houses of Assembly nationwide to ‘reject the recent Bill, “an amendment, that prevents women; who married outside their place of origin from contesting elections in their place of origin” where they were born and nurtured; engrafted by nature, well established and very well known before contracting any form of marriage.”

    The presidential hopeful added that: “This amendment has definitely crossed the national red lines and must be stopped.

    “A daughter has the same right as the daughter-in-law, or even more for regents from palaces, and this amendment must not be so. Or is this geared at encouraging divorce and discouraging national unity through Inter-state and inter-ethnic marriages? Or could it be an advise to all women to remain single, unmarried and stay at home!

    “Nigerian women can now see that this APC government does not want the women to be married, nor contest elections into political offices. Nigeria having made the ticket open for women; after making our potential husbands to lose their jobs, and with the ongoing killings in the nation. They have decided to perfect it all with a law, so we cannot help as mothers .

    “We want to remind the National Assembly that, “every woman according to nature’s endowment is entitled to her father and marital homes and this is no bone for any contention.

    “This is strictly a gender issue and the Nigerian women all say ‘NO’ to any such backward and negative amendments.”

  • Executive, NASS can’t dictate election order to INEC, say lawyers

    Executive, NASS can’t dictate election order to INEC, say lawyers

    Move by the National Assembly to influence the sequence of next year’s election is not sitting well with some senior lawyers.

    Neither the legislative nor executive arm, according to the lawyers, can dictate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the order in which the elections should hold, insisting that the commission can only act based on the Electoral Act 2010 and its guidelines without recourse to the two arms of government.

    However, the lawyers are of the view that the National Assembly can alter the elections order by an amendment of the enabling law.

    While the Presidency is in favour of INEC conducting the Presidential elections first, the lawmakers want theirs to come before the Presidential election.

    Mr. John Baiyeshea (SAN) said any attempt by the National Assembly to coerce INEC to change the order prescribed by the commission for 2019 elections is in bad taste.

    He said: “Under the Electoral Act and other enabling laws, INEC is empowered to take full charge of elections (including prescribing the Order of Elections).

    “This is how it has been over the years. Even the 2015 elections were like that. The Executive and the National Assembly respectively cannot and should not dictate to INEC how it should arrange the Order of elections.

    “I understand the National Assembly is hurriedly making efforts to amend the Electoral Act to get the National Assembly to do their bidding.

    “This seems to be a panicky measure based purely on perceived fear of losing election that is behind that move, which is rather selfish and not any genuine love for the citizens of Nigeria.”

    Former Lagos Branch chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Mr. Martin Ogunleye said “The term ‘independent’ in the name of INEC presupposes that the commission ought to be independent of and from external influence. Neither the executive nor the legislature ought to interfere in the time-table,” he said.

    Lagos lawyer and President, Crusade for Justice, Mr. Richard Nwankwo, said based on the Electoral Act as amended, the power to determine the sequence of an election is vested in INEC.

    However, he said the lawmakers reserve the right to amend the Electoral Act which would leave INEC with no choice.

    Mr. Tope Alabi said “Deciding the order in which elections are to hold are within the prerogative of INEC. The commission has the discretion and powers to decide how to conduct any elections so long as they are free and fair.

    “The law gives INEC such powers, and that law has not been amended,” Alabi said.

     

  • Executive, NASS can’t dictate election order to INEC – Lawyers

    Executive, NASS can’t dictate election order to INEC – Lawyers

    Senior lawyers said on Friday that neither the Presidency nor National Assembly can dictate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the order in which next year’s general elections should hold.

    According to them, INEC can only act based on the Electoral Act 2010 and its guidelines without recourse to the two arms of government.

    The lawyers, however, said the National Assembly can alter the elections order by an amendment order of the enabling law.

    While the Presidency is in favour of INEC conducting the presidential elections first, the lawmakers want theirs to come before the presidential election.

    A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Mike Ozekhome, said the National Assembly can alter the order of the election through an amendment of the Electoral Act.

    “What the National Assembly is not allowed to do is to change this law less than six months to any election. We still have 14 months before the election, so they can amend the law to change the order.

    “But, beyond it, it is more responsible and more politically correct to put lesser elections first before the biggest election. The little masquerade first dances in the village square before the biggest of them all comes out.

    “It will have a negative effect if you hold the presidential election first before others. Others like governors or senators would want to go where the president had gone so that they would not be in opposition.

    “Not only that, the person who has won the presidency can decide to muscle others and remove those they don’t want within one week. So, let the small elections come first, which will make the presidential candidate to lobby, work very hard and go down to the remotest parts of Nigeria to campaign, because he cannot take anything for granted.

    “So I think the National Assembly is right in terms of political correctness and morality,” Ozekhome said.

    Former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos Branch, Mr. Martin Ogunleye, said INEC is empowered to act independent of executive and the National Assembly.

    “The term “independent” in the name of INEC supposes that the Commission ought to be independent of and from external influence. Neither the executive nor the legislature ought to interfere in the time-table,” he said.

    The President of Crusade for Justice, Mr. Richard Nwankwo, said based on the Electoral Act as amended, the power to determine the sequence of an election is vested in INEC.

    However, he said the lawmakers reserve the right to amend the Electoral Act which would leave INEC with no choice.

    “If the National Assembly tinkers with the enabling law and provides the sequence of election, then INEC’s hands would be tied, even though people would look at it as the lawmakers taking undue advantage of their position.

    “But, that does not detract from National Assembly’s powers to make such laws. Whether it is morally or politically right is not the issue. What is in issue is whether the National Assembly has the power to tinker with the law, and that is beyond contention,” Nwakwo said.

    Lagos lawyer, Mr. Tope Alabi, said neither the Presidency nor the National Assembly can impose anything on INEC except through the Electoral Act’s amendment.

     

  • NASS, stakeholders collaborate on extending Local Content to construction, power sectors

    Members of the Federal House of Representatives have begun working with stakeholders in Power, Construction and Information Communication Technology sectors to extend the Nigerian Content Act to the three sectors of the economy.

    The collaboration was firmed up at the recent workshop organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) for members of the House of Representatives Committee on Local Content, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    The consensus at the event was that extending the Act to those key sectors would replicate the achievements recorded in the oil and gas industry through the implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act.

    In his presentation on Opera-tionalising Local Content in the Construction Sector, Chief Executive Officer, Megastar Construction Company, Arch Harcourt Adukeh stated that the construction industry could be a key driver of the Federal Government’s economic diversification programme when the prevailing dominance of the industry by international companies is reversed.

    Adukeh underscored the need to encourage indigenous participation in the construction sector, adding that the industry was a key enabler of ancillary services like financial services, education, retail, real estate and hospitality.

    Speaking on Local Content in the power sector, Commissioner, Engineering, Performance & Monitoring, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Prof. Frank Okafor, stressed that”no country in the world had grown its power network through the importation of all components and devices.’’He canvassed a legislation that would promote deliberate utilisation of local human and material resources, goods and services in the power sector.

    Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Local Content, Hon. Emmanuel Ekon in his address, highlighted some of the achievements recorded in the oil and gas industry through the imple-mentation of the Nigerian Content Act.

  • 2018 budget: Expert advises Govt, NASS on early passage

    2018 budget: Expert advises Govt, NASS on early passage

    A financial expert, Prof. Sheiffdeen Tella, on Monday called on the Federal Government to work closely with the National Assembly to ensure speedy passage of 2018 budget.

    Tella, a Professor of Economics at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye in Ogun, said in Lagos that this was to avoid returning the country to recession.

    President Muhammadu Buhari had on November 7, 2017 presented before a joint session of the National Assembly, a budget proposal of N8.612 trillion for the 2018 fiscal year.

    This represents 16 per cent increase of N7.298 trillion over the 2017 budget.

    NAN reports that budget had started generating controversy since it was presented by the President Buhari.

    Tella said Federal Government should work on the NASS to pass the budget on time and set to start its implementation immediately.

    The expert said budget implementation could only be achieved with early passage of the budget.

    He said all attempts should be made to grow the economy faster to avoid returning the country to recession.

    “Federal Government should start implementation of the capital aspect of the budget, particularly power, road and rail infrastructure and mining as well as financial sector development to engineer cheap or affordable credits for industrial sector.

    “Increase in money supply is likely to increase due to increased political activities, but that will be from the second quarter.

    “It can cause inflation, if improved production does not begin from the end of first quarter.

    “So, budget implementation must start early if the budget is passed early in the year.

    “All efforts must be made to grow the economy faster to avoid returning to recession,” Tella said.

    He said the progress made on the economy in 2017 would leap-frog in 2018 on improved policy implementation.

    The economist said the pace of diversification of economy, through agriculture and industrialisation, should be pursued steadily and consistently with appropriate corporation between monetary and fiscal policy makers.

    Tella said the country should be interested in domestic production of refined fuel than importation, adding that action on modular refinery should be intensified.

    He said power supply should progress more in such that alternative energy sources like solar and wind should be improved upon and diverted to non-commercial areas.

    Tella said energy from gas and thermal sources should be diverted for industrial use.

    He said improvement in power supply would bring down the cost of production greatly for effective competition of domestic goods and imported.

    According to him, the use of local raw materials in production will also reduce importation and cost of production arising from exchange rate problems.

     

     

    On the capital market, he said that the market performance in 2017 was quite impressive and would likely continue in 2018 with the right policy.

    “If interest rate falls and businesses go to the market to raise funds, the market performance will improve faster, otherwise if economy remains sluggish, the capital market can suffer from patronage,” Tella said.