President Buhari has declined assent to five bills passed by the National Assembly.
The bills are the revenue mobilisation, allocation and fiscal commission amendment bill, bankruptcy and insolvency bill, federal polytechnic amendment bill, as well as maritime security operations coordinating board amendment bill and energy commission amendment bill 2018.
President Buhari indicated his decision to decline assent to the bills in the letters written to the National Assembly.
Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu who presided over plenary read the letters on the floor on Thursday.
President Buhari explained that he declined to assent to the revenue mobilisation amendment bill because it would obstruct its motive and administration of revenue generating agencies of the federal government.
“The bill will confer the powers of oversight of the revenue currently vested in the president and minister of finance to the revenue mobilization, allocation and fiscal commission and negate the existing provision of section 51 Federal Inland Revenue Services,” Buhari said.
“The proposed insertion in section 6 (a) of the bill with regards to the removal of earns of generating revenue agencies needs to be harmonized with the various establishment acts of these agencies which contain specific terms and procedures for the removal of chief executive officers.”
He declined to assent to the bankruptcy and insolvency bill because of drafting issues which he says affects the clarity and understanding of the bill.
“For instance, section 65 (1) imposes a duty on a banker to report the existence of the account of an undischarged bankrupt to the trustees as it is incumbent on the banker to both ascertain that the customer is an undischarged bankrupt and also locate the relevant trustee to provide the information about the account of such customer,” he said.
