By Emmanuel Ndukuba
Awka, June 10, 2024 – Hon. Somtochukwu Udeze, Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly, has said the House in the last one year passed eleven bills into laws out of 21 presented.
He said that 62 motions and over 70 resolutions were considered within the period under review.
According to him, out of the 21 bills, eleven were executive bills while 10 were private legislative members bills.
The speaker made this known on Monday in his office while briefing journalists on activities and achievements of 8th State Assembly in the last one year.
Udeze said the present House has done well when compare with the predecessor.
“Some of the challenges of the House were that the 8th Assembly has more new members who are not abreast with the legislative principles.
“The House had to organise seminars within and out the state to keep them in tune with the principles of the house.
“We have 23 new members and seven ranking ones. It became difficult for us to harmonize them inline with the legislative principles and it took us time to organise them in tandem with the legislative principles.
“We had to organise seminars and these seminars helped us to put them in legislative manners” Udeze added.
According to him, all the legislators in the House work as a team as there is nothing like party loyalty.
He noted that the loyalty is geared to serving the people of the state and not party.
“We are focused as one and we don’t talk about party in the house today,” he said.
He debunked the insinuation that the members are just robber stamp to the executive, stating that House did not need to be confrontational with the executive to be seen working.
The speaker said the they have good and cordial working relationship with the governor and it will continue.
He revealed that they are currently working on it’s autonomy and soon it will succeed
.
“We support the governor to ensure our people benefits from the dividends of democracy.
“We are interested in serving the masses and not fighting the governor” he said
Udeze affirmed that they have also set up a committee to review all laws passed in the last 20 years.
“We have made more sacrifices than any assembly in the state.
“We are sacrificing more, what I earned in 2015 was far more than what we are earning today.
“The governor had cut every thing down. Whatever we can do to bring values to our people, we will not hesitate to do so,” he said.
