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Lawmakers Investigate Toxic Waste Dumping In Delta State Communities

Federal lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives have gone on a long recess, but pockets of activities are still going on. Although … Continue reading Lawmakers Investigate Toxic Waste Dumping In Delta State Communities


National Assembly

Floor-of-National-AssemblyFederal lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives have gone on a long recess, but pockets of activities are still going on.

Although plenary is on hold until they return on September 16, committees in both Houses are still continuing with public hearings and oversight functions.

The House of Representatives Committee on Environment is trying to unravel the dumping of 469 metric tonnes of toxic waste in 11 communities in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State in May 2013.

The House met with Agip Oil Company which is in the eye of the storm, the Department of Petroleum Resources  (DPR) and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to get to the root of the matter.

It might be the last of series of investigative meetings by the House of Representatives committee on environment to unravel the dumping of of the toxic waste.

The committee has been meeting with representatives of the affected communities alongside the DPR, NOSDRA and Nigeria Agip Oil Company which has been accused for the toxic waste dump by the communities.

After several reports leading to inconclusive meetings, the department of petroleum resources finally indicted the oil company.

The Deputy Manger on Environment, DPR, Abdul-Azeez Balogun and the Director, Oil Field Assessment, NOSDRA, Idris Musa were at the hearing.

The oil company, however, raised objections to the findings but the committee chairman, Uche Ekwunife, said the submissions would be adopted and investigations closed while they looked at the reports so far gathered.

Communities in the Niger Delta region are crumbling under the weight of toxic waste dumping and oil spills and multinational companies must be made to take responsibilities of their actions.

National Conference And Contentious issues 

The eyes of many Nigerians have been firmly fixed on the ongoing National Conference.

Delegates at the National Conference tackled several contentious issues which have long been simmering underneath the surface of the polity.

Issues such as true federalism, devolution of powers, derivation and resource control, state creation and state police to name a few.

But so far delegates have not been able to agree on the concrete issues of true federalism, devolution of powers and resource control, and it will be interesting to see if there will be a change of course when the conference resumes on August 4.

Channels Television spoke with the Senate Minority Whip, Senator Ganiyu Solomon, to get his views on some of the issues raised at the National Conference.

Bullet-Proof Cars: Lawmakers Questions Aviation Ministry

Lawmakers in Nigeria, concerned about the high indebtedness which the airports remodelling projects was throwing the sector into, questioned the Aviation Ministry of the alleged 174.7 billion Naira missing funds in the ministry and the whereabouts of the 255 million Naira bullet-proof cars allegedly bought by the ex-Minister, Stella Oduah.

The question came just as the Senate Committee on Aviation is inspecting the airports and aviation parastatals as part of its oversight.

In the last one and half years, a lot has happened in the aviation sector that had brought the ministry under scrutiny.

A major shakeup in the Ministry of Aviation and aviation parastatals as well as remodelling of airports across the country have been witnessed between 2012 and now.

The House of Representatives committee on aviation during the week met with the Supervising Minister of Aviation to discuss the funding issues in the sector.

The Supervising Minister of Aviation, Samuel Ortom, told the lawmakers that the Federal Government has been unable to utilize the 500 million dollars Chinese loan for the remodelling of the nation’s airport because of the non-provision for its counterpart funding in the 2014 appropriation act.

He told the Committee on Aviation that the ministry has formally requested the debt management office to reschedule the payment of the counterpart funding.

Federal lawmakers were concerned about the high indebtedness which the airports remodelling projects was throwing the sector into.

Lawmakers also wanted to get to the root of the issue of the alleged 174.7 billion Naira missing funds in the ministry and the whereabouts of the 255 million Naira bullet-proof cars allegedly bought by the ex-Minister, Stella Oduah.

The House of Representatives directed the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to speedily reactivate and replace all non-functional Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras at the airports around the country to check the extortion and pilfering of luggage of passengers.

A lawmaker, Hassan Saleh raised a motion under matters of urgent national importance noting that the proliferation of security operatives at the country’s airports has increased incidences of indiscriminate extortion, harassment and other vices.

He said such unpleasant experiences encountered by both outgoing and incoming travellers portrays Nigeria negatively, observations that caused the House to give its Committees on Aviation and internal affairs one month to investigate the ills and ensure the aviation authority arrests the situation.

The House also gave its committees on ICT and Public Safety and National Security two weeks to investigate the failure of the video surveillance and CCTV cameras to detect criminal activities in Nigeria’s cities.

This was after a lawmaker, Friday Udoh, raised a motion, also under urgent national importance, noting that a contract to install video surveillance and CCTV cameras had been awarded to a globally acclaimed telecommunication company during the Umaru Yar’Adua administration.

He said the contract was at an initial cost of 470 million dollars for about 2000 surveillance gadgets among other things in the FCT and Lagos.