The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has put paid to insinuations and rumours making the round and aimed at tarnishing the image of the 7th Assembly, describing it as “baseless, mischief of colossal proportion and unsubstantiated.”
Responding to a sponsored publication, captioned: Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) raise alarm over alleged exploitation by Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Barrister Aniefiok Dennis, in a statement, said “Ordinarily, the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly would have rightly ignored the unsubstantiated, bogus and baseless publications, but for the purposes of avoidance of doubt and clarity, the 7th assembly led by Rt. Hon. Aniekan Bassey who has zero tolerance for any form of corruption considers it appropriate to definitely refute these malevolent publications, without a shred of evidence to back them up.”
speaking further, Barrister Dennis said “It is noteworthy, that the committee on Appropriation and Finance is yet to commence its statutory duties of budget defence, the 2020 Appropriation bill was read the second time on the 10th of October 2019 and committed to the committee on Appropriation and Finance and the standing committees of the House “which shall, for this purpose, be deemed to be sub-committees of the appropriation and Finance committee and shall consider estimates for the Ministries, Departments and Agencies which come under their charge” as provided for by Order 8, Rule 2 Sub 3 of the standing orders of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly. This statutory obligation shall be complied with notwithstanding any form of fluid and/or nebulous allegation from any quarter(s).”
the statement added that “The Chairman House committee on Appropriation and Finance is stickler to procedure and shall not be deterred by shallow and facile allegations. The MDAs should be ready to defend their budgets accordingly. They should not be alarmed, agitated or apprehensive in any manner whatsoever.”
The Chairman of the House Committee on Information also called on the people of the state “to ignore the unfounded allegations of ‘anticipatory’ exploitation. This is nothing but a mischief of colossal proportion and same should be accordingly ignored and disregarded.”
