NASS gets 60 days to pass “ease of doing business” laws – Saraki

THE National Assembly has been given a deadline of 60 days to pass specific laws that will make it easier for investors to do business in Nigeria.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki gave this hint on Tuesday while speaking at an expanded meeting of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council presided over by acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Also in attendance was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

He said working with the executive branch of government would make it easier to achieve results.

According to him, “I think meeting and working together with the executive will make it much easier. This is a strong message for investors out there who are coming in. And we have given ourselves timelines.

“We have been given 60 days for some specific bills to be passed and we hope and promised that we will do that on our own part.

“Is a good initiative and it will go a long way to improve business environment.”

Noting that some of the issues about addressing business environment are addressed through policies, he pointed out that some of them require legislation “and we have been talking about what is our own responsibility there.”

Saraki said the legislature would look at ways to ease access to credit and improve credit bureau transactions, adding, “These are some of the bills we need to pass in order to improve the business environment.”

In a chat with State House correspondents after the meeting, the Senate President gave an insight into some of the bills that would be passed.

“One is the area of access to credit, there are two of them in particular, Credit Bureau Bill and Collateral Transactions Security, those are the two we are working on to ensure its passed as soon as possible,” he said.

He dismissed suggestions that the National Assembly had succumbed to an ultimatum given by a government committee to pass the pass the bills.

He said: “No no no. Whether executive or legislature, we are all working for one government and for our people.

“You see, they are already doing things that we are already doing but this is to ensure there is no duplication.

“We are all setting for ourselves deadlines. Some of them have already been passed by the Senate and the House has passed but there are some they are interested in which we also have. We are not fighting here.”