House of Reps Speaker calls for emergency measures to combat recession

The Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr

In a welcome address to mark the resumption of the House after its annual recess, Dogara called for increased consultation with economic experts to deal with the crisis.

He advocated for collective efforts to address the challenges and said that it was unnecessary to trade blames.

“What is required is that the present government takes responsibility and actions to stimulate the growth of the economy.

“As leaders, we must take responsibility for the present economic situation although we are not directly responsible for it.

“We must admit that this is a difficult thing to do in the present generation that spurns responsibility. Everyone wants to blame someone for something that goes wrong.

“These are no times like any other. I, therefore, call on all of us and indeed the National Assembly, to continue giving legislative support to the Executive on all well-thought-out and effective solutions to our economic problems.

“More than ever before, we must be prepared to listen more, think more and work more,’’ he said.

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“We must also consult the abundant pool of experts in Nigeria and abroad to fashion out short, medium and long-term measures for dealing with the crisis and setting our country on the path of sustained economic growth.

“The state of our economy is of urgent and critical importance. That Nigeria has gone into recession is a very worrisome development that calls for emergency measures to be taken.

“All hands must be on deck to tackle the myriads of problems facing us.

“This is not the time for partisanship; this is not the time to score political points.

“This is not the time for grandstanding; this is not the time for blame games. The situation and the times call for bold, courageous, enlightened and purposeful leadership.

“This is a patriotic call to action from all stakeholders and indeed all Nigerians.

“We must unite as a people to rescue Nigeria from the shackles of poverty, social and economic underdevelopment,’’ he added.

Dogara also said that being aware of the alarming state of citizens’ penury the house would collaborate with the executive to fine-tune limitations in policy formulation and implementation to ensure speedy delivery of services.

“ We need to immediately take a second look at the pace of budget execution and the spiralling rise of the dollar against the Naira, and the exchange rate.

“We also need to check the impact of the Treasury Single Account on the economy, investment in infrastructure, tackling unemployment, among others,” he stressed.

While assuring that the budget reform process had started, the speaker directed all committees to immediately begin assessment of the 2016 budget implementation.