By Adedayo Akinwale
The House of Representatives has lamented that majority of the bills passed by it are yet to be considered by the Senate as required by law.
Speaking at plenary on Wednesday, the Leader of the House, Hon. Alhassan Doguwa, explained that in a bicameral legislature, it is expedient for both chambers to work together and give concurrence to bills passed before such bills can come into effect.
Doguwa, who presented about five bills from the Senate seeking concurrence from the House, lamented that it was unfortunate that the Senate is not considering bills from the House the same way the House is doing to Senate bills.
He stated: “Mr. Speaker, I rise once again for the fifth time to present the Senate Bill for second reading. As I rise to do this, I want to put on record that this House takes seriously the issue of working together with the Senate for maximum performance. That is why this House has always given speedy consideration to bills passed by the Senate. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same thing about the Senate.
“We have quite a number of bills passed by this House which are still lying on the table of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business unattended to. This is a thing of concern to the leadership of this House. I want to appeal to the Senate to give urgent attention to bills passed by this House seeking concurrence. That is how a bicameral legislature works.”
Contributing, the Minority Leader, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, said the Senate should be asked to do the needful and consider bills passed by the House.
The Deputy Speaker, Hon. Ahmed Wase, who presided over the plenary, commended the House Leader for bringing up the issue and assured him that the leadership of the House will discuss the issue with the leadership of the Senate with a view to ensuring that it is addressed as soon as possible.
