President Bola Tinubu will, in December this year, commission N30 billion worth of projects currently going on at the National Assembly complex, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has said.
Akpabio made the disclosure on the commissioning of the projects being executed within the National Assembly complex at the weekend while having an audience with the chairman and members of the governing board of NASC.
He said: “The entire complex of the National Assembly is like a construction site now due to ongoing general renovation work and fresh projects that, on completion, would be commissioned by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in December this year.
Aside from the general renovation work, part of the new edifices being put in place is the permanent office complex of the National Assembly Service Commission and a very befitting library complex.”
Though Akpabio did not state the amount of money that had been released to contractors handling the project, the 9th National Assembly appropriated N30 billion to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for the execution of the project, out of which, as of March this year, only N9 billion had been released.
The Senate President, in response to a request made by NASC chairman, Ahmed Kadi Amshi, for prompt documentation of legislative aides of lawmakers, assured him that the September deadline would be abided by.
In his address, Amshi told the Senate President and other principal officers of the Red Chamber that the end of September this year has been fixed as the deadline for the documentation of aides of the 469 federal lawmakers.
He noted that the documentation of the legislative aides is necessary for the payment of their entitled emoluments.
“Your Excellency, Mr President of the Senate, please help us to inform the serving senators, and by extension, honourable members of the 10th National Assembly, to forward names of their appointed legislative aides to us for required documentation and payments of monthly salaries.
“The commission has opened relevant files for this purpose and fixed September this year as the deadline,” the NASC chairman said.
He added that within the last three years, the commission under his leadership has promoted a total of 2,775 staff, converted about 447 others from one cadre to another, and set a code of ethics for the ethical conduct of staff at all times.