Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila who is the Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives has reiterated that the Conference of Speakers and Heads of African Parliaments (CoSAP) has decided to make more implementive measures for the purpose of debt cancellation by creditor-nations.
The speaker made this known on the second day of the ongoing 1st CoSAP in Abuja.
He has explained that the symposium would want all debts owed by African countries cancelled, adding that this would help the countries to start from “reset the button to zero. This he said means that they had no debts outstanding against them.
Gbajabiamila said that compared to debt review or relief, in the case of the latter, the debts would still be outstanding, except that there would be some alterations.
Others he said would include some adjustments or even postponement of the repayment schedules, saying “we want to reset our buttons to read zero. He added that this was the position, and appealed that African countries should support this push.
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Gbajabiamila’s also spoke on the need for parliaments to step up their oversight duties in tracking how the executive spent the loans taken on behalf of countries
This, he said, usually ends as debt burdens or traps.
Gbajabiamila also said that there was need to set aside a percentage of the health budget for vaccine research and manufacturing by African nations.
He said this could also be legislated upon to make compliance mandatory, while recommending the establishment of an African Centre for Vaccine Research and Production.
He explained that the joint centre could be located anywhere on the continent, where all African countries could contribute to its development.