Reps set up post-COVID-19 strategic response team

The House of Representatives on Tuesday set up a COVID-19 Strategic Response Team (CRST) to develop interventions, bring forth reforms and update the legislative agenda for post-COVID realities and priorities.

Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, in his address at the resumed plenary of the house, noted that the closure of commercial activities in Nigeria and other parts of the world as a measure to curb community transmission of COVID-19 had devastated the global economy.

“We have already begun to see the effect in millions of lost jobs, lost incomes, lost revenue and severely diminished productivity.

“In the past week, we saw oil prices fall into negative value. Our country, heavily dependent on crude oil income, has seen a drop in our revenue so severe that we risk failing to meet even the most basic obligations of governance,” he said.

Gbajabiamila said social welfare demands on the public treasury were higher than they had ever been, adding that the present reality called for nothing short of a wholesale reform of governing structures, systems and processes.