The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has said there was no going back on October 29, 2019, deadline for 2020 budget defence.
It will be recalled that the House adjourned plenary on October 10 and dedicated three weeks for budget defence to enable the country return to January to December budget cycle.
Speaking to journalists after inspecting the defence processes Wednesday, Gbajabiamila said the date was sacrosanct, asking agencies of government to keep to it.
The House is also expected to resume plenary on the same date.
He said: “We are sticking to October 29 deadline for budget defence.”
Also confronted with the question of why some committees had embarked on closed door meeting with the Ministers and other heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs or simply as families Ministers who were former members of the House to ‘take a bow and leave’, the Speaker frowned on the practice.
He said budget defence was an open process that should tolerate the cameras.
The speaker, however, promised to interface with the chairmen of committees to ascertain the reason behind the action.
It will be recalled that Committees on Power, North East Development Commission, NEDC, Foreign Affairs, Navy and Basic Education had during their respective sessions, demanded the exit of journalists for secret meetings with the visiting MDAs.
For the Committee of Basic Education, the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, was asked to take a bow and go.
Reacting, however, Gbajabiamila said it must be for a genuine reason.
“I have absolute confidence in the chairmen of the committees. They were carefully selected based on their background, experience, knowledge, passion. If you see certain things like you have expressed, there will be a reason for it.
”Budget process is an open thing. It is transparent, accountable. But if there were one or two areas where you had closed door or private meetings, there might be implications. I don’t know. It could be security implications; it could be the things that are necessary for the cohesion of the process itself and for the country.
“But as far as I am concerned, if out of 100 committees so to speak, you find that in one or two committees, I can bet there is a reason, genuine, verifiable reason for it. I will not be able to preempt.
”This is an information that I will take, talk to chairmen and find out exactly why the meeting was in closed door and we take it from there.
“But all in all, we have had a great outing. We are trying to meet the deadline without sacrificing the thoroughness of the budget defence. We can do both at the same time. We can go back to January to December cycle and at the same, have a thorough, comprehensive budget defence.
”That is exactly what is going on. I am going around, not because of anything but because I have to be a part of the process. I am a legislator first and foremost before I became the speaker. It’s a reformed House,” he said.
