Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe representing Abia South says the ninth National Assembly could have some better during ministerial screening.
Senator Abaribe, in an interview with Vanguard, said although the national assembly hasn’t done so badly, they have had some missteps.
He said, “For example, budget-making was very tardy and the law was not being followed. The law says the budget is supposed to be from January to December but we didn’t take it serious.
“We corrected that. I think where we made what I will call a not-very-impressive statement is in the way we screened ministers and went through the process of approving the heads of ministries in Nigeria.
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“I think we could have done a better job. But be that as it may, what we want to do is to look at the future and not at the past.
On how they screened the ministers, he said, “There should have been a far more rigorous examination of their programmes, qualifications and all that even though I also stated at that time that part of the problem is the fact that we have continually gone on with the wrong way of nominating people, meaning that you bring somebody without a portfolio and so, if the person doesn’t have a portfolio, what you do, at best, is to guess using whatever credentials he has and ask him questions along that line but not knowing whether he will be there.
“For example, we had about four SANs, we didn’t know who was going to be Attorney-General among them.
“So, what were you gonna ask them? What I would like to see is whether it’s possible to change the law to make it mandatory that whenever the President is nominating ministers, he will do that with portfolios.”
