Reps will provide legal framework to boost foreign investments — Deputy speaker

By Abubakar Yunusa

Benjamin Kalu, deputy speaker of the house of representatives, says the parliament will prioritise legislations that will boost direct foreign investments and make Nigeria the best business destination in Africa.
In a statement, Levinus Nwabughiogu, Kalu’s chief press secretary, said the deputy speaker gave the assurance on Friday when Gabor Krauss, the deputy ambassador, embassy of Hungary, paid him a courtesy visit.
Kalu also said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a robust economic agenda that will reposition Nigeria’s business.
“You know if you come to African continent, the biggest market is Nigeria. So anyone who’s going to be strategically positioned to benefit from the Africa continental trade agreement cannot avoid Nigeria,” he said.
“So what you’re doing now is good for your country, by sniffing out opportunities, closer to your people to embrace.
“I want to promise that from this office which is the office of the Deputy Speaker, ours is to make sure that we provide the legal framework that will enable foreign direct investments and increase confidence in the business environment.
“All policies that will have to increase the confidence of investors, we will make sure we champion that through legislative interventions.
“Because we have seen, though from another arm of government, that the current president means well for the nation.
“Being a man who has been in the private sector for many years, public sector as a governor, as a member of the parliament who has done critical analysis, I can assure you he has a sharp focus on what he wants to do in Nigeria, economically speaking.
“We are here to give him all the support, so any foreign direct investor that wants to come in should have at the back of their mind, that he’s only going to get support from the executive but the legislature is another place they can run to for comfort.
“We will make sure we fine tune all the areas of bottlenecks to enable new companies spring up.”
On his part, Krauss said his mission was to communicate to the deputy speaker his country’s plan to bring more investments and humanitarian projects to Nigeria.
Krauss said that he recently visited Abia state where Hungary sought to establish a factory as a joint venture that will see its government bringing the technology while the state will provide the land.
He said that there were more Hungarian companies that would do business in the country, adding that his country has equally offered a lot of scholarship opportunities to Nigerian students.