The House of Representatives has called on the Federal Government to carry out a survey of moribund industries and companies across the country with a view to creating a databank and initiating strategies to resuscitate them.
This was sequel to a motion by Rep. Abubakar Moriki at plenary yesterday.
The house consequently mandated its committees on Industry and Legislative Compliance to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to ensure compliance.
The Speaker of the house, Mr Yakubu Dogara, mandated the committees to report back in six weeks for further legislative action.
While moving the motion, Moriki, an APC lawmaker from Zamfara State, said that from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the Nigerian economy recorded a boom mainly due to government’s industrialisation policies such as the indigenisation exercise and import substitution policy.
He said the policy encouraged the establishment of public and private industries which employed a lot of Nigerians and improved their standard of living.
According to him, in the early 1990s, a downward trend began to manifest as a result of a combination of several factors that included economic down turn.
Moriki said the development resulted to the closing down of many industries with its attendant economic consequences such as growing unemployment and social discontent.
He said that the increasing rate of unemployment, especially among graduates and youths, accounted for criminality, youth restiveness, reduction in the standard of living in the country and mounting pressure on the scarce foreign exchange.
The lawmaker said that efforts made by successive administrations to address the situation through various policy initiatives like privatisation of government-owned companies, grant of waivers and tax incentives to local and foreign investors had not yielded the desired results.
He said that lack of industrialisation of the Nigerian economy made the effects of the recent economic recession experienced by the country more acute.
The legislator said the recession brought to the fore the dire need for diversification of the economy by reviving the moribund industries and focusing attention to the non – oil sector.
He said the non-oil sector remained one of the realistic ways to reposition the country on the path of sustainable growth and development.
In his contribution, the Deputy Speaker of the House, Rep. Yussuff Lasun, said the economy crumbled because indigenous science and technology was neglected.