Enugu State House of Assembly has issued a third and final summon to the Commissioner of Lands and Urban Development, Dr Victor Nnam, and the Chairman of Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA, Josef Onoh.
The duo had reportedly earlier been summoned by the 5-man House Committee on Extortion headed by Hon Chinedu Nwamba, to appear before it to shed some light on their operations.
For the second time both had reportedly remained recalcitrant, neither did they send regrets for not honouring the invitation, nor pledged to come at any other date, rather they had allegedly recourses to the media wherein they had accused the Committee of attempted extortion.
At the resumed sitting of the Committee on Tuesday, and with the duo absent, the Committee insisted on giving them the third and ultimate chance of appearing before it to answer questions as concern the operation of their duties, in line with the House oversight functions as enunciated in Section129, subsections 1&2 of the 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.
Addressing media men on the development after their sitting, Mbah, a committee member who doubles as the Chairman of House Committee on Information, explained that invitations had similarly been extended to other state officials, especially those engaged in revenue collection as well as to the chairmen of the local councils in Enugu metropolis, pointing out that most of them had complied, including the Enugu State Signage and Advertising Agency, ENSSAA, led by the General Manager, Ikechukwu Ezeugwu, who had honoured their own invitation during the Tuesday meeting.
Mbah, while alerting the public of this development, announced the Committee’s decision to extend to the erring officials, a third and final invitation to appear before the Committee, stating that the invitation would afford the Committee the opportunity of knowing whether they were operating within the applicable laws in the state.
“It should be noted that the two public officers Hon Josef Onoh and Hon Dr Victor Nnam have recently published some malicious and libellous information against this House,” Mbah recalled.
He averred that the House as an institution, would “not engage an individual in a press jamboree, but would rather refuse to be distracted by unwarranted and mischievous attacks”.
He stated that the Committee was only interested in guaranteeing the people’s welfare by ensuring that their rights were not trampled upon.
“The House will exhaust all constitutional means available to it to make sure that the law is obeyed in the interest of the Enugu people,” he assured.
Mbah disclosed that it was necessary to ensure that revenue collection was harmonised to avoid double taxation, corruption and extortion and to ascertain any infraction of laws.
The state, he said needed money but the collection had to be done rightly, “we want to ensure that whatever they are doing has a human face”.
“Our people are suffering, there have been reports of flouting of the law and extortion, disruption of ease of doing business, investors are distracted by multiple charges. We are not interested in name-calling, blackmail or joining of issues, we are saying that money needs to be collected and done the right way”, the Committee Chairman reiterated.
Mbah, while responding to a reporter’s question on their authority to invite state officials, simply made reference to the constitutional provision for oversight, contending, “if by that constitutional provision we can summon the governor, who else can we not?”
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