President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan, has asked the Committee on Appropriations to lay its report on the 2020 budget on November 26, for consideration and passage before the end of the month.
\nLawan, who stated this at plenary, yesterday, commended the various committees for rounding off their budget defence sessions on schedule.
\nHe insisted that the resolve of the National Assembly to revert to the January-to-December budget cycle remained sacrosanct.
\nHe said, \u201cAll the committees have done their works so well within the defined parameters.
\n\u201cTherefore, we expect the appropriations committee to galvanise into action.
\n\u201cThey (members of the appropriations committee) should produce the report to be laid here on the 26th November, which is the next two weeks, before the Senate.
\n\u201cI believe this will be the same thing in our sister chamber, the House of Representatives, so that we would be able to pass the 2020 Appropriation Bill on the 28th of November\u201d, he added.
\nAlso, the Senate, yesterday, appealed to the Federal Government to ban importation of textiles in the country for a period of five years to allow for the production of local textile materials.
\nThis followed the debate on a motion sponsored by Sen. Kabir Barkiya (APC-Katsina Central) during plenary on \u201cUrgent need to revamp the nation\u2019s comatose textile industry\u201d.
\nThe upper chamber also appealed to the Federal Government to provide the necessary infrastructural facilities especially power supply to local textile manufacturing companies to revamp the industry.
\nIt also called on the government to encourage local textile manufacturing companies by providing them with soft loans and easy access to credit facilities through the Bank of Industry.
\nDebating the motion, Barkiya noted that the textile industry in the country played a significant role in the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy with a record of over 140 companies in the 1960s and 1970s.
\n\u201cThe textile industry recorded an annual growth of 67 per cent and as at 1991, employed above 25 per cent of the workers in the manufacturing sector.
\n\u201cThe textile industry was then the highest employer of labour apart from the civil service.\u201d
\nHe noted that the industry had witnessed massive decline in the last two decades with many textile companies such as Kaduna Textile, Kano Textile and Aba Textile, among others, closing shops and throwing their workers into the job market.
\nThe lawmaker further said that government policies like increase in taxation, high cost of production, trade liberalisation resulting in massive importation of textile materials had negatively affected the production of local textile materials.
\nBarkiya said that the resuscitation of the industry would provide additional revenue and assist government to diversify the nation\u2019s economy.
\nContributing, Deputy Senate Leader, Sen. Robert Boroffice (APC-Ondo North) said that the importation of textile materials was as a result of the comatose level of the textile industry.
\n\u201cThe closure of our borders is an eye opener. China closed its borders for 40 years for its industrialisation and development.
\n\u201cI believe that the closure our borders should be extended to allow us put our house in order.\u201d
\nBoroffice said that the extension of the closure of the borders would serve as an opportunity to resuscitate the textile industry, among other industries that had been characterised by smuggling.
\nBut Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP-Abia South), who disagreed with Boroffice on the fact that the closure of the borders would help revamp the industry, said that \u201cclosing the borders and doing nothing will not lead to increase in production of textiles.
\n\u201cThe real problems have been indicated; first, is the fact that we are unable to produce the cotton that we need.
\n\u201cBut far more important is the fact of power. Power was the key problem that made most of the textile mills closed.
\n\u201cOnce it became very difficult after 1982 for industries to be supplied with power and they needed to switch over to now produce their own power in order to do production, it became a lose, lose situation for most of the industrialists.\u201d
\nAbaribe called on the Federal Government to do the fundamental, power, to ensure that the smuggling of textile products was done away with.
\nSimilarly, Sen. Gabriel Suswam (PDP-Benue North-East) said that without power, no meaningful profit would be realised in any manufacturing industry in the country.
\nSuswam, who called on the government to address the issue in the power sector, said that if this was done, the manufacturers would be able to make profit.
\n\u201cIf we take concrete actions on these issues, our economy will be enhanced, the welfare of the people will be enhanced, insecurity and by extension, criminality, will be reduced,\u201d he said.
\nIn his remark, the President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan said that as Nigeria had signed the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, \u201cwe have to be prepared for the repercussions.
\n\u201cWe cannot stop trading easily with other people. We have to up our game; we need to be competitive,\u201d Lawan said.
\nMeanwhile, the House of Representatives has called on the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Customs Service to lift the ban on the sales of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) within 20km to the country\u2019s borders.
\nIt would be recalled that last Thursday, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), had directed that no petroleum products should be supplied to any filling station within 20 kilometres to the borders.
\nA member, Hon Sada Soli, moved a motion of urgent national importance at the plenary, yesterday, asking that the order by the NCS should be vacated.
\nAccording to him, the order by the customs boss contravenes the provisions of the Customs and Excise Act.
\nSoli argued that the filling stations asked not to sell petrol close to the borders were situated and constructed in compliance with relevant laws.
\n\u201cThis is not acceptable! Review this directive with a human face,\u201d he stated.
\nSeveral lawmakers, who seconded the motion, criticised the policy while lamenting the hardships being faced by people living in border communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan, has asked the Committee on Appropriations to lay its report on the 2020 budget on November 26, for consideration and passage before the end of the month. Lawan, who stated this at plenary, yesterday, commended the various committees for rounding off their budget defence sessions on schedule. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-220692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}