Rivers Assembly denies receiving 2024 Appropriation Bill

• Writes Fubara over delay
• NDDC rep decries 953 abandoned projects in Rivers

Rivers State House of Assembly, yesterday, at its 90th legislative sitting, said it was yet to receive the medium-term expenditure framework and 2024 Appropriation Bill.

At the resumption of plenary, yesterday, while speaking on the Order of the Day, the Speaker of the House, Martin Amaewhule, lamented that the audited accounts of 2023 were yet to be submitted to the state Assembly in line with the Constitution of the country, and no explanation has been given.

The Speaker cited relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as altered, noting that the Constitution empowered the State House of Assembly to receive a report of the audited account of the state.

It, therefore, urged the House Committee on Public Accounts to investigate why the Auditor General of the State has not submitted the 2022 audited account of the state to the House.

“The Medium-Term Framework has not been presented to the House by the governor. Also, the 2024 Appropriation Bill is yet to get to the Assembly. It means that the state, now, is operating without a budget.

“Since this Assembly was proclaimed, we have not gone on recess. We have been working round the clock, and we must look at the legislative calendar and choose an appropriate date to proceed on recess,” the Speaker said.

Consequently, the lawmakers unanimously agreed to write to Governor Siminialayi Fubara to notify him of the delay in presenting the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and the 2024 Appropriation Bill to the House in line with the 1999 Constitution.

MEANWHILE, Rivers representative at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Tony Okocha, has decried the abandonment of over 953 projects of the  Commission  in  Rivers State,  linking the development with governments’ inconsistency in the  appointment of board members of the  commission.

Okocha stated this, yesterday, during an interactive session with the state traditional rulers at their Council Secretariat, in Port Harcourt.

Okocha, who is also the State Caretaker Committee Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), said that before now, board members of NDDC were usually dissolved within three months, a situation he described as unhealthy towards achieving objectives of the Commission.

He explained that new boards do not like continuing with past projects but prefer to initiate new ones to make names.