Osinowo: decries constant invitation by National Assembly

The Organised Private Sector (OPS) on Monday lamented “frequent invitation of business owners by lawmakers for investigations,’’ saying that the invitations were killing businesses.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Mr Olusegun Oshinowo, made the remarks at a news conference in Lagos.

According to him, companies and business membership organisations are being forced to incur avoidable litigation, travelling expenses and waste of time to attend “settlement meetings”.

He said that issues being investigated by the lawmakers were those that could be resolved by various agencies in-charge of the organisations.

“The coca-cola issue is an example.

“The right agency the legislators should approach is NAFDAC, which is responsible for quality control, instead of inviting the chief executive officer of the company.’’

The NECA chief said that resources of companies were being wasted on issues that could be dealt with through appropriate regulatory agencies.

He said that the legislature had a role to play in promoting socio-economic development because the quality of leaders, quality of institutions and quality of policy were three key roles that drive development.

“Any country, aiming to impact positively on the welfare of its citizens must get the three factors right on a sustainable basis.’’

He said that OPS that were NECA members were not averse to constructive engagement with the leadership of the House of Representatives on all matters for the good of the country.

Oshinowo revealed that prospective investors were worried on why businesses were under constant siege, instead of creating a conducive environment for enterprises to thrive.

He identified other factors killing businesses to include wasted hours that stakeholders were being subjected to when invited to the National Assembly, especially for public hearings.

He warned that invitees to the National Assembly should not be disrespected since they represented companies, even if they were not the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs).

“When a company has honoured the legislators’ invitations by sending representatives, why will the lawmakers throw out such representatives?

“Why equate the CEO with the institution?

“Committees of the house are quick to threaten CEOs with arrests and bench warrants, whenever they send a proxy to represent them.’’

The director-general said that efforts to explore the use of dialogue, advocacy and lobby to resolve this fledged issues with the National Assembly had not yielded positive results.