Reps C’ttee was Jerk up to enhance efficiency, value for Nigerians -Speaker Abbas

By Christiana Ekpa

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas has justified that the increase in the number of the Standing Committees from the 109 inherited from the 9th Assembly to over 130 in the 10th session of the Green Chamber, was done to enhance efficiency in the House give value to the country, even as he stressed that Every standing committee of the House must be seen working for the betterment of Nigeria.
Abbas had in July unveiled 134 Standing Committees and named their Chairmen and Deputies while he announced creation of three additional ones on Monday.
The Speaker at the interactive session with journalists covering the Green Chamber in Abuja on Tuesday, said the increase in the committee was to enhance the efficiency of the House and add value to the country.
He emphasized noted that the Committees on Monitoring and Evaluation and Implementation for instance were aimed at ensuring that every standing committee leaves up to its responsibility while the legislative agenda is implemented to the later.
According to Abbas some committees hitherto had too much responsibility as they were too many agencies under their purview and can not effectively carry out oversight functions, hence the need to split them for efficiency.
The Speaker said: “There are so many things that the 10th Assembly has brought onboard that will not only enhance our efficiency in the House but will also give value addition to the country. One of them is the creation of a standing Committee to monitor the activities of all standing committees in the House.
“You will agree with me that in the past not all committees were active because of one thing or the other. This time around, we want to ensure that every standing committee leaves up to its responsibility. Every standing committee must be seen working for the betterment of Nigeria.
“We want transparency, we want result oriented administration and that is the reason why we decided that this time around there should be a standing committee that will be monitoring what is happening in the other standing committees.
“We also bring on board another standing committee that will monitor the implementation of our legislative agenda. We set a standing committee to be monitoring how we are going about implementing our legislative agenda.”