The House of Representatives Wednesday committed four Bills passed by the 8th Assembly but not concurred by Senate to the Committee of the Whole for consideration.
These are: Terrorism (Prohibition and Prevention) Bill, 2019 (HB. 56); Nigerian Peace Corps (Establishment) Bill, 2019 (HB.17); Chartered Institute of Treasury Management (Establishment) Bill, 2019 (HB. 57); and National Commission for Refugees, Migrant and Internally Displaced Persons Bill, 2019 (HB. 171).
The Green Chamber reached the resolution following motion on: ‘Reconsideration of Outstanding Bills from the Preceding Assembly, Pursuant to Order Twelve, Rule 16 of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives, sponsored by Mohammed Monguno, House Chief Whip
Monguno while presenting the motion noted that, “pursuant to Order Twelve, Rule 16 of the Standing Orders of the House, Bills passed by the preceding Assembly and forwarded to the Senate for concurrence for which no concurrence was made or negatived or passed by the Senate and forwarded to the House for which no concurrence was made or negatived or which were passed by the National Assembly and forwarded to the President for assent but for which assent or withholding thereof was not communicated before the end of the tenure of the Assembly, the House may resolve that such Bills, upon being re-gazetted or clean copies circulated, be re-considered in the Committee of the Whole without being commenced de-novo.
“Also notes that the aforementioned Bills were passed by the preceding Assembly and forwarded to the President for assent but for which assent or withholding thereof was not communicated before the end of the tenure of the last Assembly. Aware that the Bills were re-gazetted as HBs. 56, 17, 57 and 171 and had been respectively read the first time.
Furthermore, the House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to make an assessment of the state of Federal Roads across the country and make recommendations on how to ensure an enhancement of the pace of work on those currently under reconstruction and also cater for others for which contracts for the repairs have not been awarded.
This was sequel to a motion on: ‘Deplorable State of Federal Roads Across the Country’ moved by Adefisoye Tajudeen (SDP, Ondo).
Tajudeen in a lead debate said, “the House notes that most Federal Roads across the country are now death traps, going by their present state of disrepair in spite of the huge budgetary allocations for repair of the roads on a yearly basis;
“Also notes that no meaningful development can be achieved, just as no viable investment can be attracted into the country without a good road infrastructure.
“Concerned that a lot of innocent lives have been lost through avoidable accidents due to the poor state of Federal roads and a number of Nigerians who, ordinarily would have traveled within the
country by road are now left with the option of having to travel by air due to the poor state of the roads.
“Aware that criminals are capitalizing on the dilapidated state of the roads across the country to perpetrate their evil acts through which many innocent lives have been lost not to talk of the man hours being wasted by commuters daily in the roads which affect the growth of the economy;
“Informed that the tale of bad roads cut across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria and therefore not peculiar to a particular geo-political zone, and of particular mention is the Owo-Akoko road in Ondo State which serves as the gateway to the North from the South-West and is currently in a state of despair.
“Recalls that contracts for the construction of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Lokoja- Okene – Abuja Road were awarded more than ten years ago, yet, not much work had been done on the roads”.
