A bill seeking to establish National Industrial Technology Park, passed second reading at the Senate on Tuesday.
This followed the presentation of the lead debate on the general principles of the bill by the sponsor, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun (APC-Ogun) during plenary.
The bill is entitled “A bill for an Act to establish National Industrial Technology Park, as a mechanism for clustering of knowledge and innovation-based industrial parks formations in Nigeria and for related matters, 2022.”
Leading the debate, Amosun said the bill was read for the first time on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021.
The lawmaker said the bill sought to establish industrial parks, where Nigerian entrepreneurs could converge on a cluster, brainstorm, and showcase their ideas and creativity, thereby reducing unemployment and poverty in the country.
“The establishment of the Industrial Technology Park in Nigeria is imperative, as it will go a long way to assist in nurturing Nigerians to be technologically savvy and competitive.
“It will also serve as a veritable platform for the promotion and commercialisation of research and development.”
He said that the objectives of the bill included stimulating investment and creating employment and facilitating export growth and foreign exchange earnings.
Contributing, Deputy Senate Leader Ajayi Boroffice said the bill, when passed, would help diversify Nigeria’s economy from a monolithic to a multi facet economy.
“If this bill to establish this park is backed by law, it definitely help us in our efforts at industrial development,” he said.
In his remarks President of the Senate Ahmad Lawan, commended the sponsor of the bill for a job well done.
“We need to provide a better security environment because people are going for establishment of industrial technology parks; it means drawing more resources.
“We don’t have those kind of resources that we need in our country but once we have a very good security climate, we have young and intelligent citizens and we can compete with any country.
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“But we have to work together across all the levels of government to ensure we create and sustain a better security environment that will encourage people coming to invest in the country,” he said.
Lawan thereafter referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment for further legislative action and to report back in four weeks.
