Following the Friday’s razing of the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC in Khana local government area of Rivers state, the commission has postponed the conduct of national and state legislative rerun elections in the state.
Credit: Vanguard
SenateThe Senate spokesperson, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, on Thursday said the National Assembly will pass the 2016 Budget next week.
“We are here to let you know that as of today, we are unable to lay the 2016 Appropriation Bill and thus, we are hoping next week that process will be completed.
“When I briefed you, I recalled you were asking if the passage will be completed by next week; and, we said ‘yes’ when you lay the budget the next thing is for you to discuss the budget and get it passed.
“The two activities will be carried out next week God willing”, he said.
Briefing journalists, the Senate spokesman explained that the National Assembly was unable to pass the 2016 Budget this week as planned because the appropriation committees are trying to make sure that there are no errors in the budget.
“As far as we are concerned, we have not failed. What is happening is the seriousness with which we take the 2016 Appropriation.
“It’s such that we cannot also afford to make errors that will become very costly to this nation.
“We have finished all necessary work within the context of the various committees. But remember, when you do the paper work, you have to also get people who will sit down and check.
“That is what we call data cleansing and integration; that is the two appropriation committees must integrate, that is the essence of what you call harmonization,” he maintained.
He added that the National Assembly was trying not to do the work in a haste and also make mistakes which was why the `data cleansing’ had to be done without haste.
“In everything you do, you must give freedom for degree of error. And, plus or minus, five is the basic standard that I’m aware of.
“Within this context, if next week we will be able to take this, then within that margin of error, the National Assembly is still on course.
“We call on Nigerians to understand that we are as eager as you to get this budget out but at the same time, we owe you a duty to ensure that the budget will be implementable,” Mr. Sabi said.
Senator Abdullahi assured that the national assembly would pass a budget which would meet the aspirations of Nigerians.
Credit: ChannelsTv
The Nigerian Senate on Thursday, postponed the screening of 18 ministerial nominees yet to be screened.
In a tweet via its Twitter handle @NGRSenate, the Senate which resumed for plenary today, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no ministerial screening today (Thursday). We will continue on Tuesday, October 20, 2015. We will tweet CVs of new nominees.”
Despite the postponement of ministerial screening, the Senate still continued with the day’s legislative activities.
Details of why it postponed the screening till a later date is still sketchy at the time of filing this report.
So far, of the 36 ministerial nominees, 18 have been screened by the Senate.
Read More: vanguardngr
INEC has postponed the State House of Assembly election in eight of the 24 constituencies in Bayelsa state. The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Baritor Kpagih, said in a statement on Friday that the elections for the affected constituencies would hold on April 18.
The REC said the election in those constituencies had to be postponed by one week due to inadequate ballot papers. “The election was shifted because of the position of stakeholders that election should not hold without full complements of the ballot papers. They maintained that unless there was 100 percent supply of ballot papers, there should be no election,” Mr. Kpagih said.
“And unfortunately from what we received from INEC headquarters in Abuja, there were some shortfalls. That was why we had to shift the elections.”
According to the REC, the councils were elections have been postponed are Ekeremor Constituencies 1, 2, and 3, Kolokuma/Opokuma Constituencies 1 and 2, Sagbama Constituencies 1 and 2 and Southern Ijaw Constituency 1.
Mr. Kpagih also blamed pirates for disrupting the distribution of election materials to coastal areas in the state and said the development might adversely affect the conduct of the elections in the remaining constituencies on Saturday. He however said elections would hold on Saturday, as scheduled, in the remaining 16 constituencies in the state.
