Ministerial screening, accommodation top agenda as Senate resumes

BY INALEGWU SHAIBU

AS the seventh Senate resumes tomorrow after its two weeks recess, it will be faced with problems of accommodation for new Senators and screening of ministerial nominees.

Although it is not yet known whether the list for the new ministers is already domiciled in the National Assembly, there are feelings that the recess embarked upon by the Senate had delayed the composition of a new cabinet by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Senate is expected to move with speed to clear the air upon resumption. But while trying to assuage Nigerians that it had no hands in the delay of composition of Federal cabinet, the Senate has to also move with urgency to tackle the problem of accommodation being faced by new Senators.

The accommodation problems may be aggravated by the planned reduction in allowances for Senators and the high cost of rent in Abuja. Vanguard gathered that the new Senators are being handed N3.5 million as rent per annum.

Although before the Senate proceeded on the recess, which will end tomorrow, an Ad hoc committee was set up by the Senate President, David Mark with the sole responsibility of allocating seats, offices and handling accommodations for the Senators.

The committee headed by Senator Smart Adeyemi had so far delivered on two out of its three mandates. On June 21, the committee completed it mandate of allocating seats and offices to the Senators. All the principal officers from the Senate Majority Leader down to the Minority Chief Whip have their names tagged to the red seats in the Senate chambers preparatory to their resumption.

Offices have also been shared out by the committee. It is gathered that the 37 returning Senators would have offices at the New Senate extension, leaving the new Senators to grapple with the new Senate building.

But the new legisators are not bothered by the choice of building for their offices. They have a more serious problem, which is that of suitable accommodation.

The committee at the moment is in quandary regarding the accommodation matter because 78 members of the Senate constituting more than two-third are without accommodation.

Reason being that houses in Apo legislative quarters which used to be the official quarters for both members of the Senate and the House of Representatives had all been sold out under the monetization policy of  former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

With the inability of the committee to provide accommodation for them, the new Senators are now faced with the task of coughing out millions of naira to secure accommodation in Abuja.

Senator Adeyemi, commenting on the problems, described it as a dicey situation that must be handled as quickly as possible.

He blamed it on the sale of Apo legislative quarters to sitting Senators by the government, while also acknowledging that the Senate was handicapped at the moment due to lack of funds to even get hotel accommodations for its members.

Adeyemi lamented that the accommodation problem had become a discouraging factor to the new senators as they do not only have to think of how to cough out millions for accommodation, but are also faced with the responsibility of securing accommodation in areas with high security compliance.

He said: “The problem facing new senators now is accommodation. It is not easy to get accommodation in Abuja right now. Do you know how much it costs to pay for a good accommodation in this city? That is why the sale of the Apo Legislative Quarters was a serious mistake. Where were you journalists when the government sold those quarters? Now lawmakers cannot find accommodation.

“That is the huge problem right now. They should have known that new Senators will come after every four years and nothing was done about it after the sale of the houses. It is also very expensive to stay in a hotel in the city. The new lawmakers are very disappointed. And besides getting good accommodation, it was important that lawmakers resided in secure place given the fact that comments made by a legislator on the floor could result to attacks from evil people.”