Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt, Sen. Clifford Odia (PDP -Edi) says non appearance of some ministries to present details of foreign loan request has prevented the committee from presenting its report for consideration.
Ordia, on Wednesday at Plenary made the remark when, he cited order 43 of the senate rules which did not give provision for debate but for personal explanation.
Ordia, while explaining, said the senate mandated the committee to look into the loan request by engaging the ministries on details of the request as related to the various ministries.
He said the senate had mandated the committee to submit its report for consideration within two weeks.
Ordia, however, noted that only eight out of the ministries appeared before the committee to present details of the loan request.
He said approving a loan of over 22 billion dollars was a very serious matter and needed some serious explanation from the ministries to enable the committee submit its report to senate.
He, therefore, called for an extension of time to enable the committee submit its report in view of the delay by the ministries to appear before the committee.
He listed the ministries that were yet to appear before the committee to include Education, Power, Niger-Delta, Humanitarian and Disaster Management, Water Resources,Health, Communications and Agriculture.
In his remark, President of the Senate Ahmad Lawan, said the senate was committed to ensuring that important issues like foreign loan request by the executive needed to be treated with all seriousness by both sides.
He said the senate was making every possible effort to ensure it understood the request ,noting that it needed the details, information to take appropriate decision on the loan.
Lawan, consequently gave the ministries that were yet to appear to make their presentation to the committee latest Feb 10.
He also gave additional two weeks to the committee to present its reports at plenary.
