NASS will ensure legislative compliance on programme implementation – Lawan

President of Senate Ahmad Lawan says the National Assembly is working to ensure that programmes are implemented in conformity with laws and resolutions passed by the National Assembly.

He said that the 9th Senate would ensure, via its oversight functions, that programmes were implemented and administered efficiently,effectively in line with legislative intents.

Lawan made this known at the 2019 legislative conference in Abuja on Monday.

The theme of the conference is “Strengthening the Legislature for Effective Oversight Function”.

Lawan, represented by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Legislative Compliance Sen.Oliolowo Adeyemi, said that from January 2020, the senate committee would be making available weekly publication of motions and laws passed as well as compliance reports to the public.

He said that one of the major issues militating progress in the country was the non-compliance with laws made by the legislature.

“The key factor militating against progress in Nigeria is neither paucity of funds nor dearth of laws but non-compliance with statutory requirements especially at implementation.

“Most of the problems we are having is as a result on non-compliance with law.

“There are a lot of laws and resolutions that has been passed by the National Assembly but non-compliance has been the cause of our problem.

He said that the National Assembly was determined to run a legislature that would work for Nigerians.

He said that the yardstick for determinimg the performance of legislators was the number of bills produced, laws enacted, number of motions passed, petitions resolved and number of investigations carried out and committee reports.

According to him, the conference is part of the organisers’ contributions to enhance the capacity of Nigerians in the art and science of democratic practice.

In his speech ,Prof. Muhammed Ladan, Director General, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, said that the legislature must satisfy certain conditions to effectively deploy its oversight powers.

Ladan listed the conditions to include availability of capacity and oversight tools.

He also listed the availability of material, technical, financial and human resources to perform optimally in the oversight of other arms of governments.

Ladan, however, noted that studies had shown that political will of legislators remained the most important.

Earlier, the convener of the conference and Chief Executive Officer, HALLOW MACE Communications Ltd, Mr Sunny Osiebe, said the theme –“Strengthening the Legislature for Effective Oversight Function,” — cannot be more timely and fitting.

He said that it was imperative to strengthen the legislative processes and procedures to further empower the legislature to carry out of of its core duties of oversight.

The highpoint of the event was presentation of papers on legislative oversight by resource persons.