The spokesman of the Senate, Senator Ajibola Basiru (APC Osun Central) , Tuesday debunked insinuations that the National Assembly is cash strapped.
Senator Basiru in a personally signed press statement in reaction to a story published by one of the national dailies on alleged cash crunch hitting the National Assembly, said being an institution on first line charge, it is not financially handicapped in anyway.
He also debunked the allegation of once in a week sitting, saying no official decision to that effect at the Senate in particular, having been sitting thrice a week since the beginning of the year, except in the last two weeks that it sat twice in a week.
He added that as both chambers achieved the minimum requirement of 181 days in any legislative year as stipulated in section 63 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), will be met in the ongoing legislative year .
The statement reads in part : ” We are in the 9th of March and we have a 12 month calendar- . There is nothing that says we won’t sit for 180 days. It is therefore irresponsible for anybody to insinuate that we would not sit for 180 days.
“Those who are saying we won’t achieve the mandatory 180 days are just creating unnecessary tension where there is none.
“Nobody can predict that we won’t sit for 180 days, it is too early in the year to determine that. Despite last year’s lockdown, we achieved our mandatory 180 days sitting.
“There was no circular that we have reduced sitting to once in a week. We have been having sitting three times a week since the beginning of this year at the Senate. We have slso had sitting twice a week.
“There is a second wave of COVID – 19 pandemic. We are very brisk in our business these days. When it was necessary, we had had occasions to sit on a Monday this year.
“The issue of cash crunch hitting the National Assembly is the figment of the imagination of the writers. I have just returned from my constituency where I went to supervise the projects that I facilitated and being implemented by the executive arm of government.”
