Majority Leader, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila said yesterday that 327 bills in the first six months as against 132 presented by the Seventh House within the same period under review.
He explained that 264 of the bills have passed through first reading and awaiting second reading, adding that 40 have been referred to committees for further scrutiny.
Gbajabiamila, who addressed reporters in Lagos on the activities of the House, said the bills and resolutions passed were to address issues of insecurity, unemployment, economic reform, reform in the oil and gas sector of the economy among others.
On the rationale behind the presentation of 130 bills for first reading in a day, the House Leader explained: “Our Legislature is presently confronted with so many defective and obsolete provisions in our law.
“What the current House has done is to put its members and the National Institute for Legislative Studies to work and in the course of reviewing existing laws, discovered provisions in our laws that had become obsolete both in language, spirit and effect.
“The institute, therefore, recommended these bills for amendments and repeals. It was an all encompassing exercise targeted at flushing out irrelevant and obsolete provisions from our laws. This step has been applauded by experts and it is the resolve of the House to continue to process these bills until they become law.”
According to him, the House has resolved to investigate so many issues that affect the development of the economy. The investigations, he said, cut across the economic and social spectrum from power to education to Lake Chad to banking.
Gbajabiamila promised that the House would in the coming year and upon resumption, pursue its oversight responsibilities so as to plug leakages and make government more efficient and effective in delivering its socio-economic contract with the people.
“The National Assembly must accept major responsibility for the profligacy that took place in the past and we intended as a House to redress this national embarrassment,” he added.