By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Abuja—Speaker House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, yesterday, gave Friday deadline to committees yet to submit report of 2017 budget to the Committee on Appropriation to do so, warning that any that failed to heed the new directive would face consequences.

Yakubu Dogara

This directive came as some adhoc committee chairmen, yesterday, raised alarm over the manner the House leadership dissolved 22  adhoc committees set up before standing committees were put in place in 2015.

Dogara, who gave the deadline at plenary, said there was urgent need for the House to conclude work on the 2017 Appropriation Bill.

According to him, the affected chairmen and deputy chairmen of committees should endeavour to submit their reports latest March 30 to enable the Appropriation Committee hasten the process of passing the 2017 Appropriation Bill.

Spokesman of the House, Abdulrazak Namdas, had on March 16, told newsmen that the March 30 deadline set by the National Assembly for the passage of Bill was not sacrosanct.

Adhoc chairmen lament dissolution of 22 c’ttees

Meanwhile, some adhoc committee chairmen, yesterday, raised alarm over the manner the House of Representatives leadership dissolved 22 adhoc committees set up before standing committees were put in place in 2015.

Some of the affected chairmen who spoke to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, declared that the move by the House leadership was distasteful as most of their reports were ready but regretted that the money earmarked for the consultants were not released.

They claimed that many chairmen were under serious external influence to compromise but refused to budge.

One of the chairmen said: “It’s rather disheartening that at this stage that most of us had concluded our reports and they just from no where dissolved our committees.

“It’s the same leadership that deliberately refused to pay required stipends to run the committees, do they want us to collect money from those we are investigating?

“I’ll pay my consultants myself and still go ahead and submit the reports to the speaker but thank God that in the course of all my investigative hearings, I did not collect one kobo from any contractor.

“Pressures came from everywhere but I held my ground and ensured I lived above board. My report is an attestation to that fact.’’

Another lawmaker, who spoke in the same vein was quick to say that the speaker must have been inappropriately advised on the matter since he knew funds were not adequately released.

He said:  ‘’You don’t expect us to perform magic over night.  Honestly, I’m disturbed by this action but it will not in any way deter me from getting to the root of this matter and if I discover that there was an external influence, then I’ll go public with my findings.

“All the lawmakers here are not thieves as they’ve made the public to believe, some of us here have decent backgrounds.”

HoS fails to produce Buhari’s approval for Shuara

Also yesterday,  the Head of Service, HoS, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, again failed to produce the letter of approval by the Presidency that extended Dr Jemila Shuara’s tenure as Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary to the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education.

This is the third time in the last one month that the HoS has failed to produce the letter Shaura claimed elongated her tenure by an extra year.

Immediately the HoS told members of the committee, led by Zakari Mohammed, that the letter could not be made available, members of the committee felt slighted and tempers rose.

Chairman at this point, told the HoS: “You are frustrating the committee from doing its legislative duties and we’ve always given you the honour of picking a date so by Thursday noon, come here with all the vital documents concerning this matter.”

The meeting was adjourned till Tuesday.