Why Senate Delayed committees’
Inauguration – Ndume
The delayed in the composition of
Senate standing committees have been attributed to insistence by some senators
to serve in ‘juicy’ committees.
Senate leader, Ali Ndume
About 50 out of the 109 members of the upper chamber who have filled out forms distributed by the Senate leadership, have indicated interest to serve in what is known among lawmakers as grade A committees and leaving other committees with fewer interest.
The Punch reports that this development gave the
leadership of the red chamber much difficulty of redistributing the 65
committees among 109 senators.
The committees with the highest interest are Petroleum
Resources (Upstream, Downstream and Gas), Niger Delta, Works, Finance, Federal
Capital Territory, Health, Education, Defence (Air Force, Navy and Army),
Appropriation and Communication.
Others are Environment, Ecology, Trade and Investment,
Special Duties, Power, Solid Minerals, Sport, Social Development and Aviation.
It was learnt that only few senators shown interest to
serve in these committees: National Planning; Media and Public Affairs;
Establishment and Public Service, Foreign Affairs, Culture and Tourism and
Drugs, Financial Crimes.
Reacting to the situation, the Senate leader, Ali
Ndume said that leadership of the upper chamber had redistributed the
committees equally stating that in the coming weeks, announcement of Senate
standing committees will be made.
Ndume said: “The Senate will announce its
committees before the end of this week. It has not been an easy work. Being the
Senate leader, I am involved in the setting up of the committees.
“I must be frank, I thought it was a day’s job
initially but honestly, it is not easy when you have about 60 committees and
there are 109 members. What we did was to give out forms to members to indicate
the committee they would be interested to serve in.
“By the time we
complete the tabulation, there are some committees that were not selected by
members. That may be because they don’t have the knowledge of the existence of
these committees or their importance.
“On the other hand, we have traffic or congestion of
traffic, with members selecting what some people call juicy committees. We have
huge concentration of members showing interest in that.
“We have between 40 and 50 members selecting such
committees. So, what we had been doing is that we have been carefully balancing
the composition of the committees so that there won’t be any case of
lopsidedness.”
Meanwhile, Senate Committee on
Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions will resume the investigation of the the Chairman of
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde over a petition
brought by Dr. George Uboh.
Anyanwu said that the committee
suspended investigation into the case so as to allow the anti-graft agency boss
enough time to prepare for his defence.
Post a Comment