Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of House of Representatives, has hailed the contributions of his colleagues to the peace and development of Nigeria.
This is contained in his speech read at plenary to mark second anniversary of the 8th House.
He thanked his colleagues for “your support, solidarity, patience, understanding, comradeship, hard work and harmony exhibited in the last two years in spite of many daunting challenges.”
Dogara, however, told them that, “We need to do a better job of coordinating the activities of various Committees to ensure synergy and avoid overlapping of activities and functions.”
He also said that reforms introduced included the details of the Appropriation Bill being made available to all members before passage at the plenary.
Also introduced, he said, was requirement that members of committee should sign report of their committees before it would be sent to the Committee on Appropriations. “
All these novel measures are unprecedented in the history of our parliament.
“These proactive measures ensured that the debate and consideration of the 2017 budget by the house was evidence-based and geared towards galvanizing the economy for greater growth.”
Dogara said that a total of 126 Bills were passed by the House during the period and that others were at various stages in the legislative mill, with a thorough examination of them shows the interest of the House in getting the economy out of the current recession that has affected both large and small businesses as well as families across Nigeria.
He also indicated the introduction of new minimum wage Bill to promote the welfare and well-being of Nigerian Workers especially in light of changing economic realities.
