Guardian

THE Plateau State House of Assembly has said it met the mandatory number of sittings before it went on Christmas and New Year recess.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Diket Plang, stated this yesterday during a chat with journalists. “We are more than average in terms of sittings. We are above the minimum. We have a time-table at the beginning of every legislative session and we follow the timetable rigidly and religiously,” he said.

Plang explained that the oversight functions of the House, which are done outside the House, are regarded as part of the sittings of the House because they are part of the legislative functions. He pointed out that when a matter of urgent importance is committed to a particular committee, it is assumed that the House is sitting even though not all the members of the House may be members.

He stated that the House remains one indivisible entity as opposed to rumours making the rounds that it is divided, especially during the governor’s budget presentation where only nine lawmaksers were able to make it to the House to receive the governor. To prove that the House is one, he said there was a full-house meeting of members after the budget presentation, adding that at that meeting, various committees were set up to look into the budget issue.

According to him, the House may reconvene in February as January falls within their recess.

Governor Jonah Jang presented the 2013 budget proposal of over N133 billion to the House for approval which he pleaded should be given accelerated passage.

The budget is one that would touch the lives of the citizens of the state because the government has awarded massive contracts for construction of roads and other projects, including the new Government House at Little Rayfield, Jos.