By Naomi Uzor

The Nigerian Association of Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), has called on the incoming government to overhaul the existing refineries and encourage building of new ones.

Disclosing this at the NACCIMA review of the state of the nation and expectation from the incoming government, the Acting National President of NACCIMA, Chief Bassey Edem, said, the chamber passionately appeal to the National Assembly and Federal Government to hasten up the process of passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (P.I.B) as earlier promised

“Government should overhaul the existing refineries and encourage building of new ones, most especially modular ones all around the country to enable the country increase her refining capacity for local consumption. This will support export of refined products and thereby maintaining local employment and saving the nation of foreign exchange used in the importation of refined products.

There is also the need for the government to further empower the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Niger-Delta to tackle the problem of oil thieves and pipeline vandalization” he said.

He said it is important to state that as the nation round up this democratic dispensation for a new one, the expectation of private sector operators are very high considering the various electoral promises of the incoming government.

“This explains the call by the Organised Private Sector (OPS)  for a policy dialogue session with the incoming administration.  A conducive business environment is very imperative for the growth of the business sector and overall improvement of the economy.  The incoming government should have a retrospective look and revert to the practice of having critical dialogue session with the private sector to discuss inputs into the nation’s budgetary development process as was the norm in the past.

The need for this interaction has become imperative for a successful Public Private Partnership process to further develop our economy” he said. He said with the successful conclusion of the electioneering process in the country, which slowed down the economic activities of the country in the first quarter of 2015, government needs to go back to business so as to put the economy in the right direction.

“As the country inches nearer to the hand-over date to a new administration, we wish to reiterate the need for the  governments at all levels to keep a very close watch on the economy and to sustain the ongoing economic development process in order to have a smooth transition to a new government” he stated.

On security, he said, the recent effort by the Federal Government at curbing the menace of insecurity in the country, especially the insurgency in the North-East is commendable; however, more efforts are still needed to eradicate the unabated security challenges.

“The incoming administration must ensure that advanced technologies in checking the activities of these miscreants causing insecurity in our nation must be entrenched on our security agents.    There is also need for training and retraining of our Armed Forces to better equip them with modern sophisticated techniques that will guarantee the security of all Nigerians” he said.

According to him, in Nigeria, the cost associated with the running of the government has increased considerably over the years and has significantly increased recurrent expenditure of the government, thereby decreasing the government expenditure on public project in vital sectors of the economy, adding that, it is important for the incoming administration to start considering ways by which the country’s recurrent expenditure can be reduced beginning with a lean and efficient government administration.