Again,House of Representatives Adjourns over Faulty Public Address System

By Shola Oyeyipo in Abuja

For the third time in less than two weeks, the House of Representatives has adjourned plenary due to its faulty public address system.

Talking about the adjournment Wednesday, the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, said it is both an opportunity to fix the faulty public address system and also enable its committees conclude their oversight functions.

“I have been told that the rolls on my right the microphones from the first rolls to the sixth roll are not working while roll seven to 11 are functioning and if we want to seat there, all the rolls here will be empty and the entire people at the front will have to vacate their seniority on the floor and move backwards.

“We should not be afraid to be criticised and we should not be afraid to hide the fact. The truth is that this system was fixed in 1999 and anything that happens to the public address system we would have to go back to the manufacturer – we can’t find the match to buy them and that is the state of the public address system.

“So, we are putting these facts out there to the public; we are not ashamed, we are not afraid to be criticised; we are the House of the people. We would take the two matters of urgent public importance and then we would have to adjourn the House so that the technicians can make improvisation to make the public address system work.

“That therefore means the oversights that some committees have not been able to conclude will be concluded by the time we reconvene hopefully Tuesday next week. So, all the reports from the heads of the committees should be ready for presentation and oversight reports, then we can go towards the perfecting of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2019 budget in due course. So, that is the truth and we are not hiding the truth from anybody,” he stated.

The lawmakers had adjourned sitting last Wednesday, Tuesday and finally on Wednesday, the plenary was adjourned till next Tuesday.