The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajuddeen has informed that, the 10th House increased the number of the Standing Committees from the 109 to 134 for effective oversight functions not for political conveniences.
He stated this while addressing journalists at an interactive session on Tuesday.
He said some of the committees utilised during the 9th Assembly were too big or had too much responsibilities because of the number of agencies they oversight.
According to him, such burden hinders the efficiency of their oversight functions which necessitated their splitting for efficiency.
Abbas said, “You are also aware that we brought on board so many additional committees during the last three months and we are not just doing it to satisfy members who wants to leaders in the National Assembly.
“It is to enable us to further deepen our oversight legislative function. Some committees are so large to oversight.
“I give you an example, for example, the committee on tertiary education in the past has over 300 agencies under it. They won’t be able to cover the agencies within the year”.
The Speaker said the 10th Assembly has brought many things that will not only enhance it’s efficiency, but will also give value addition to the country.
He added, “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”.
The Speaker said, the Committee on Monitoring and Evaluation and Implementation was created to ensure that every standing committee lives up to its responsibility to implement the ‘Legislative Agenda’ of the 10th House to the latter.
