‘National Assembly Passed No Bill For FCT Since 1999’

Indications emerged yesterday that since the return of democracy in 1999, the National Assembly, which serves as the assembly for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has not passed any of the FCT Bills sent to it into law.
The development came just as it was also revealed that about 16 Bills, bordering on different areas of the FCT were presently awaiting passage in the National Assembly.

Director, Legal Drafting, FCT Legal Services Secretariat, Mr. Abdullahi Kuyambana, disclosed this at a reception organised in honour of? the new secretary of the secretariat, Ms. ImaObong Okpongete yesterday.

He, however, said there was a glimpse of hope as the Senate committee on the FCT, as well as its House of Representatives counterpart had assured on the passage of the Bills.

Speaking in an interview at the end of the event, Okpongete said the legal secretariat under her leadership would use the knowledge of the law to guide people with a view to reducing the stress as the law was not intended to punish the people but guide them aright and evolve an orderly society even though there were penalties assigned to offences.

She lamented that in a bid to get things done, past administrations of the FCT had done some things wrongly, resulting in the myriad of court cases the administration was inundated with band stressed the need for policy makers to involve those trained in the law at the inception stages of all policies.

Okpongete said: “With due respect to past administrations; I am not condemning them
but in their zeal to get things done, a lot of things went wrong that attracted the court cases the administration has so it’s a back-log of cases we are handling but it is not true that we have not been winning most of the cases.”
She maintained that the secretariat would explore the pledge by the National assembly members to support the FCTA advance the status of the Bills still in various stages in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
According to her, the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed had prioritised the 16 Bills before the National Assembly in order of importance to enable the administration its development obligation to meet the residents.

“We have commenced action; we have made a list of the Bills and we are forwarding them to the Senate. We want to know the present state of all the Bills in the National Assembly and we are commencing action immediately,” she added.

Some of the Bills, the secretary said were those for existing institutions of the FCT which did not have enabling laws, such as the FCT College of Education Zuba and Satellite Towns Development Agency.

Other Bills of top priority before the National Assembly are the Public Service Commission Bill, Property Tax Bill, Company Tax Bill and the Bill for the establishment of the FCT Board of Internal Revenue.