Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari may lay the 2023 budget estimates before the National Assembly in the first week of October 2022.
The Speaker who Wednesday, was on a tour of ongoing renovation of the main sitting chamber of the House, as well as the temporary centre for plenary as the House prepares to resume, made the disclosure while fielding questions from journalists. Budget.
“I am hoping that the budget will be presented, latest, by first week of October”, he stated.
He also expressed optimism that the hall converted into temporary sitting chamber for the House will be ready before next Tuesday.
“It would be ready on Tuesday. They’ve done so far, so good. This work started in August, few weeks behind time for good reasons. So far, between August and now, giant strides have been made.
“You can see the whole chamber has been ripped apart, innovations are going to be introduced, with state of the art…at the end of the day, we’ll be proud of a chamber that match the best standards all over the world.nI am quite impressed with the work so far.
“I will encourage them to double the pace, because as it is, this is not for the benefit of the 9th assembly, it is for the benefit of the 10th assembly. The whole chamber is not going to be ready until Septembet, August next year so we’re talking of close to a year, and that tells you the level of work that’s is going on.
“This temporary site, where we will be sitting for the next nine-10 months is obviously a far cry from where we used to be, but again they have done well in adapting what used to be a hearing room to a legislative chamber. When you talk about adaptation, it means a lot of innovations. We are ready to go”, he said.
On whether the 10th assembly will kick off from the the temporary centre, he admitted that it is most likely to be so.
“The 10th assembly, more than likely yes. Unless work can be accelerated, but you don’t want to accelerate work and compromise the quality of the work, since it’s better late and done well, any thing worth dong is worth dong well. Right now, they are billed to open up that place in August if we’re lucky, and they are able to move fast and work 24/7 round the clock, maybe in a month or two earlier, in which case the 10th assembly will come in into the new chamber so we are ready to go”, he submitted.
The Speaker was taken round the ripped chamber being renovated by Visible Construction Limited, after which he also inspected the temporary sitting halls, formally Conference Rooms 028 and 231, all networked with real time audio-visual technology for seamless plenary sessions.
He also visited permanent site of the National Assembly Service Commission, where he was briefed on the progress of work.
