Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State

Kogi State House of Assembly on Thursday stopped further legislation on a Bill seeking mandatory completion of projects by the state government before embarking on the new ones.

The bill, sponsored by Mr Sunday Shigaba (PDP-Bassa), failed at the second reading during plenary.

Many of the members that commented before the halt, said they did not see reason why the state government should be compelled to complete a project before starting another.

Presenting the Bill earlier, Shigaba said it was sponsored because resources had been wasted by successive governments in the state abandoned many projects.

He decried the syndrome of abandonment of projects in all parts of the state by successive governments and the quantum of wastage the development had caused the state in terms of resources.

The lawmaker said if the Bill was passed into law, it would subject annual budget to proper scrutiny by both the executive and the legislature.

He added that such move would boost the appropriation bill before presentation to the House for approval and passage into law by the executive.

Shigaba urged the House to pass the bill to ensure that only projects, ongoing and abandoned with direct bearing on the lives of the people were captured in the budget for succeeding fiscal year.

However, the Majority Leader of the House, Matthew Kolawole (PDP-Kabba-Bunu), queried the “Mandatory Completion” clause in the bill.

Victor Omofaye (PDP-Ijumu) and John Abba (PDP-Ibaji ), who toed the line of Kolawole said that the bill should have come inform of a motion.

Godwin Osiyi (PDP-Ogori-Magongo) said that that if passed, the bill would contradict the principle of Separation of Power and could lead to collision of the Executive and Legislative arms of government.

According to him, the passage of the bill will have adverse effect on governance.

Haruna Idoko-Musa (APC-Idah) called for the withdrawal of the bill for a “surgical operation”.

He said that Shigaba did not make the bill exhaustive to enable inputs and contributions from members and the larger society at public hearing.

Idoko-Musa, therefore, urged the presenter of the bill to present it again.

The Speaker of the House, Alhaji Umar Imam, said that if the bill was passed, it might be anti-government to any administration in power.

He, therefore, stopped further legislation on it. (NAN)