Three bills including the Ogun State Public Procurement (Amendment) Law, 2020, State Statistics (Amendment) Law, 2020 and the State Waste Management Authority Law, 2020 have scaled second reading before the members of the State House of Assembly.
This is with an assurance from the legislators that the bills when operational will aid accountability and prudency as well as ensuring access to adequate statistical data and effective waste management system for growth and development of the State.
The lawmakers gave the assurance while taking turn to contribute to the debate during second reading of the bills with long titles: “H.B. No046/OG/2020- A Bill for a Law to amend the Ogun State Public Procurement Law, 2014”, “H.B No 047/OG/2020- A Bill for a Law to amend the Ogun State Statistics Law, 2012” and “H. B No. 048/OG/ 2020- A Bill for a Law to provide for the Establishment of the Ogun State Waste Management Authority and other Matters connected therewith” during a plenary presided over by Speaker Olakunle Oluomo at the Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
Opening debate on the procurement bill, Honourable Kunle Sobukanla, who was corroborated by Oladunjoye Abdul and Ganiyu Oyedeji, said that the bill would allow for competitive pricing during procurement processes by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies; promote financial prudency, proper record keeping and block all loopholes in the previous law in line with the current procurement process.
On the State Statistics (Amendment)Law, lawmakers including Olakunle Sobukanla and Ganiyu Oyedeji stated that the amendment of the existing law was meant to promote easy access to statistical data, thereby enhancing good planning in governance, while ensuring some level of independence for the Bureau of Statistics to aid its operations.
They added that the implementation of the law would allow for accurate gathering of data and statistics; thereby providing a more viable economic index to attract more foreign and local investors into the State.
On the State Waste Management Authority Law, 2020, Honourables Wahab Haruna, Ademuyiwa Adeyemi and Adeyanju Adegoke explained that the bill was aimed at institutionalising an agency that would put in place a coordinated approach for waste management and allied issues, designing storage system that would address efficient and effective collection, hence reduce environmental hazards.
In addition, other members including Solomon Osho, Ganiyu Oyedeji and Yusuf Sheriff stressed that the bill, when passed and signed into law, would create a well- coordinated agency in line with international best practices, promote more research and development programmes, thereby addressing indiscriminate dumping of refuse and proper management of hazardous and non- hazardous waste.
Responding, Speaker Oluomo who commended the lawmakers for their robust contributions to the bills, charged the bills to the Committees on Finance and Appropriation as well as Environment respectively for further legislative actions.
He thereafter announced that the public hearing on the Waste Management Agency Law, 2020 is slated for Tuesday, 7th July, 2020 at 2.00pm prompt, venue is the Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
