House of Reps to Spend 35million on Second Year Anniversary

The House of Representatives has disclosed that it will spend N35 million to mark its second anniversary scheduled to hold on Friday, June 9, 2019.

Revealing this yesterday during a media briefing on activities lined up for the celebration, deputy chief whip of the House, Hon. Pally Iriase explained that two-third of the N35 million would largely be spent on media coverage.

Iriase who noted that the House was not oblivious of the harsh economic situation in the country, said it decided not to spend too much money celebrating.

“We are spending only N35 million and a large chunk of the amount will be expended on the media through adverts; and the events will be given live coverage by one of the television stations”.

On the House’s achievements, the deputy whip informed that a total of 1055 bills were introduced in the last two years out of which 159 were passed,13 were negative and over 500 bills are currently at various stages of passage.

He stated that one of the high points of the 8th House was the opening up of their budget for public consumption stressing that the National Assembly has also reformed the budgeting processing thereby minimising conflicts with the executive.

The lawmaker added that in line with President Buhari’s anti-corruption graft, the House will focus on passage of all anti-corruption-related bills and is now working towards the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as well as modernisation of the process of lawmaking towards e-parliament.

He also revealed that the electronic voting device in the House will be test run as from today (Wednesday).

From the lineup of events, Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN is expected to present a keynote address on “Image perception of the Legislature: causes and possible solutions” while chairman of the editorial board of This Day newspapers, Mr. Segun Adeniyi will present a lecture on “Appraisal of two years of the 8th House Legislative Agenda.”

President Muhammadu Buhari or his representative is expected to be the special guest of honour while the senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki, the chief justice of the federation, Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen and chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari will be guests of honour.