Senate Adopts Aviation Committee Report, Passes Motion on Public Procurement & Agricultural Credit Scheme Bill For Second Reading
The Senate on Wednesday, January 13, 2016 adopted the Report of its Ad-hoc Committee on Aviation led by Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano Central), passes a Motion on the “Urgent need to empanel the National Council on Public Procurement of Nigeria, sponsored by Sen. Theodore A. Orji (Abia Central) and amend the “Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund Bill, 2016, sponsored by Sen. Andy Uba (Anambra South).
Presenting the Report for Senate consideration, Sen. Kwankwaso recalled that on Thursday 13th August, 2015, the Deputy Senate Leader, Sen. Bala Ibn Na’Allah (Kebbi South) moved a Motion drawing the attention of the Senate to the almost near crisis in the Aviation sector with Domestic Airlines requesting for bail-out. He added that the sector has been granted intervention previously by past governments to bail-out some domestic Airlines which were greatly misused and failed to yield the commencing operations.
Accordingly, the Senate in the course of the report consideration adopted 15 recommendations of the Committee, among which were:
1) Attitudinal change and good leadership spirit should be inculcated by Chief Executives of Aviation parastatals and other stakeholders to maintain and refurbish critical facilities and equipment in the Airports.
2) While improvement in the building infrastructure in some of the Airports is appreciated, NAMA and FAN should place more emphasis on the provision of state of the art flight equipment that will ensure safety and assist the pilots to do their jobs professionally and confidently without endangering their lives and those of their passengers. This will guard against a situation where Airplanes cannot take off and land because of poor weather visibility.
3) Because of the delicate nature of the Aviation industry, only qualified and properly trained personnel should be employed.
4) The Chief Executives of Aviation parastatals and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology should put in place a programme to replace the ageing pilots in the industry taking into cognizance of young pilots on ground that needed a particular flying hours before they could be employed.
5) The Aviation sector in the Federal Ministry of Transport should not interfere in the day to day running of the specialized units in the Aviation industry. The Federal Ministry of Transport should know that the Aviation parastatals are allergic to bureaucracy for effective and efficient service delivery.
Similarly, the Red Chamber has considered and passed a Motion titled the urgent need to empanel the National Council on Public Procurement in Nigeria, sponsored by Sen. Theodore A. Orji and Sen. Muhammed Ali Ndume. Sen. Orji noted that the Public Procurement Act came into force in 2007 with the good intention of establishing a Regulatory Authority for the monitoring and oversight of Public Procurement. He expressed worry that since 2007 when the legislation was passed into law, the National Council on Public Procurement has not been established. The non-establishment of the council rendered the Procurement Act as good as a dead letter no matter the rhetoric.
Ultimately, the Motion sailed through with one Resolution below:
1) Urge the Federal Government of Nigeria as a matter of urgency, to officially set up the National Council on Public Procurement to give life and meaning to the Public Procurement Act, 2007, so as to achieve the laudable objectives for which the act came into being.
Also, a Bill for an Act to Amend the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund Act to promote commercial Agriculture in Nigeria; ensure credit support for production, storage, processing of target commodities, market and enterprise development, provide concessionary funding for Agriculture and for other related matters, 2016, (S.B. 17) also progressed. The Bill scaled through second reading following an exhaustive debate on the general principles of the Bill by Senators Dino Melaye, Ben Murray Bruce, Adamu Aliero, Ike Ekweremadu, Godswill Akpabio, Bukar Mustapha, Barnabas Gemade, Sam Anyanwu and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
The Bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture for further legislative inputs and to report back to the Chamber in four weeks.