Reps probe moribund automobile assembly plants

The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate the collapse of automobile assembly plants in the country with the view to making insightful recommendations for their immediate resuscitation.

This was sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Abdullahi Ali-Halims from Kogi State at plenary on Thursday.

Moving the motion, Ali-Halims said the socio-economic benefits of auto-mobile industries in a developing country like Nigeria is enormous as it will drastically reduce unemployment and the insecurity resulting from joblessness.

The lawmaker recalled that in the 70’s up till the early 90s automobile companies like Volkswagen, Peugeot, Leyland, ANAMCO, among others had functional assembly plants located in different cities across the country and contributed positively to the economy.

“The current economic challenges facing Nigeria as a whole are majorly unemployment and insecurity necessitate the need to device workable means of addressing the ugly trend, hence the need to revive the moribund auto-mobile assembly plants by negotiating with investors interested in investing in Nigeria auto-mobile plants, as this will save billions of forex used in the importation of vehicles,” he argued.

Adopting the motion the House resolved to constitute an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the issue and mandated the Committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure the implementation of the decision.

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Also, the House at plenary agreed to investigate the COVID-19 vaccine database of travellers and urged the Federal Government to overhaul the operations of the Port Health Services and equip it to a world-class standard.

It asked the National Primary Health Care Development Agency to work towards creating the required synergy between its vaccine operations and the Port Health Services to ensure online real-time access to vaccination records of travellers from the database provided for such purpose.

The House committee on healthcare services was also mandated to investigate the activities of the COVID-19 vaccination units, especially as it relates to their records of vaccinations to ensure that such records are duly kept in the approved database and the issuance of fake COVID-19 Vaccination cards.

The committee is to also probe the funds spent on maintaining a National Database of COVID-19 vaccination and the inability of key government agencies to have real-time access to the COVID-19 vaccination database and to report back to the House within four weeks for further legislative action.

These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Obinna Chidoka from Anambara State who said he was denied boarding a flight due to the incident that his vaccination taken months earlier did not reflect in the database.