Lagos Assembly trains staff on capacity building in legislative duties

The Lagos State House of Assembly has organised a two-week workshop on capacity building in legislative duties for its senior officials.

The training which took place in Abuja was with the theme; “Capacity Building in the Legislature: A panacea For Sustaining Effective Performance in the Legislature”.

The Acting Clerk of the House, Mr Olalekan Onafeko, said in a statement that the senior officers, numbering up to 110, attended the workshop in two batches.

He noted that the first batch ended on Saturday while the second batch would have their training programme this week.

The acting clerk explained that the programme was designed to enhance the skills, knowledge and capacity needed by the officers to perform their jobs effectively and professionally in line with best practices.

“The capacity building is the process of developing and strengthening the skills of officers that the legislative institution needed to survive and compete favourably with its peers across the globe.

“I want to commend the speaker for graciously approving the workshop and he had promise to take further steps to improve on the training programmes for all members of staff of the assembly.

“This is in order to ensure optimal performance and excellent service delivery in their various duties,” he said.

Onafeko, therefore, urged the participants to put the knowledge acquired at the workshop into practical and intellectual use in their various assignments.

He said the topics treated at the workshop included the Influence of Corruption in the Budgeting Process, Work Ethics in the Legislature and Diligence.

According to him, other topics are Discipline, Decency and Executive/Legislative Partnership in the Conceptualization and Formulation of Budgetary proposals.

Onafeko urged the legislature workers to prioritise the use of e-parliament to improve the parliamentary process.

He said harmonious working relationship between the legislature and the executive was also canvassed by resource persons during the training.

Onafeko said at the end of the training, various House committees were expected to consult with their respective ministries and agencies under their supervision to engender effective formulation of the budgetary proposal.

The acting clerk noted that lecturers with wide experience of over 30 years in the legislative institution presented papers during the programme.