Reps reassign 2012 ‘roll over’ Budget bill

The House of Representatives has reassigned Capital Expenditure Budget roll-over Bill, 2012 to the Committee of the whole House.

The development followed the failure of Committee on Finance, Chaired by Abdulmumin Jibrin, to attend to the bill three years after it was referred to the committee.

Consequently, the bill was reassigned to the Committee of the whole House for reconsideration.

The decision of the lawmakers to reassign the bill followed the adoption of a motion by Sunday Karimi (Kogi, PDP), who recalled that the said bill was read for the second time on July 3, 2013 and committed to the Committee on Finance for further legislative action.

According to him, the Finance Committee flouted order XVII Rule 109 (g) of the Standing Orders of the House that provides a time limit of 30 days for a Committee to attend to any matter referred to it.

As a result, Karimi implored the House to relief the committee of the responsibility of scrutinizing the document, saying, “The bill has been pending at the Committee on Finance for more than 60 days.

“It is a sign of irresponsibility for a committee not to attend to issues of this nature. We have been following up the committee on finance but up till today (Thursday), they have done nothing.

“Mr. Speaker this is unacceptable and I pray that the bill be reassigned”.

Chairman House Committee on Public Petitions, Uzor Azubuike (Abia, PDP), in his contribution, said “The worst we can do is to indict the relevant committee for not doing its job.”