Posted by By TONY ICHEKU, Abuja on
Speaker of the House of Representative, Hon Dimeji Bankole, on Thursday urged his colleagues to brace up and squarely face the challenges of their office, as their performance so far is nothing to write home about.
Speaker of the House of Representative, Hon Dimeji Bankole, on Thursday urged his colleagues to brace up and squarely face the challenges of their office, as their performance so far is nothing to write home about.
Hon Bankole, presiding over the plenary session of the House is being forced to repeat his advice, a second time, owing to the failure of several committee chairmen to submit reports of their committees, a development he first noted on Wednesday.
He noted that the inability of chairmen to submit their reports according to schedule had left the House functioning on the slow lane as it had only attended to eleven out of 65 bills presented to it.
The House sitting, which commences several minutes behind its scheduled 10 am time, also found several of the chairmen listed on the order paper to present reports not yet in the chambers.
Expressing concern over the slow pace of work in the lower chamber and the nonchalant attitude of members, Bankole remarked that the last session of the House in its first year passed 35 bills, while the current House a few days to its first year in office, has passed only eleven bills into law out of 65 bills presented.
The speaker reminded members that their legislative duties, include representation, oversight functions and law-making.
'Presentation of bills is a major performance indicator in the appointment of committee chairman and deputy. The Selection Committee is meeting daily and will use this indicator to judge in its selection exercise," he said.
He urged them to turn in their reports monthly, or quarterly as the case may be.
The speaker had on Wednesday noted the failure of committee chairmen to submit their reports, and observed that 'timely submission of committee reports, attendance at plenary sessions and committee meetings were the legislators' highest performance indicators."