HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SPOKESMAN EXPLAINS WHY THEY CREATED 137 STANDING COMMITTEES 26-10-23
By Sadiq Aminu The House of Representatives says it created 137 standing committees to make oversight function of the legislature more effective.
The Spokesman of the House, Mr Akin Rotimi who stated this, while briefing the house press corps, said rather than fault the creation of more committees, Nigerians should applaud the House for its attempt to bring governance closer to the people through effective oversight.
Mr Rotimi explained that the committees were constituted in line with present realities in the polity to create the right structure for its envisioned strengthening of oversight functions and to ensure seamless engagement.
“The House leadership should be commended for taking a bold step towards carrying members of such a politically diverse parliament along, while dismissing the claim that the newly-reformed 70 Parliamentary Friendship Groups were a duplication of both the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and that on Diaspora.
“The leadership of the friendship groups were drawn largely from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, adding that their function was to ease interaction with other parliaments across the world.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business Mr Francis Waive, revealed that over 1,800 bills have scaled first reading while 10 pieces of legislation have so far been passed by the House.
Waive described the passage of the Nigeria Audit Service Bill which repealed the Audit Ordinance of 1956 as one of such landmark bills, just as he listed a key achievement of his Committee to include innovations in the areas of the Notice and Order Papers in order to enable a seamless distribution process and allow effective contributions by Members during plenary.
He added that over 300 motions sponsored by no fewer than 200 Members have so far been sponsored despite the fact that eighty (80%) of the lawmakers are new in the federal parliament.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petition, Mr Luke Etaba, lamented refusal of heads of agencies to honour invitations to appear before it to defend petitions against them.
He said officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration refused to appear before the committee on the three occasions they have been invited to defend the petition by Apo Traders Association, while telecom providers in the country also failed to appear.