By Yang Ater Yang
Lakes state Transitional Legislative Assembly has resumed its normal house business on Monday after spending three months’ recess.
Speaking to the lawmakers during the reconvening of the normal house business, Lt. General Rin Tueny Mabor, the Governor of Lakes State acknowledged the State Government achievements of some priorities such as maintaining security and rule of law.
He cited the enactment of customary and public order Act 2022, as well as improved farming and agricultural productivity in the state.
“State government made improvement of the living condition of our teachers by increasing their salary, we carried out disarmament of the civil population, provision of the mobility to some state cabinets, reorganization of general education polices in Lakes State among others,” he noted.
Governor Tueny underlined that the only challenges still facing the state are bad roads infrastructure due to flood limiting movement of people within and outside the state.
He also stated interference of national authority with the local authority, food insecurity and impact of flood on agricultural production among others as some of the challenges hindering development in the State.
The governor said that the only way forward to maintain those challenges is to maintain peace, stability and rules of management in the state.
“Make awareness and mobilization for our community to peacefully co- exist, dialogue and reconcile, increase farmers and agricultural activities in the state next year, provision of good schools with qualified teachers and quality education, also to improve health care in order to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS in state among others” Rin said.
He however said there is need for mobilization of resources, public financial management and accountability, and they should be committed to establish good governing laws and law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Speaker of Lakes State Assembly, Rt. Hon. Agum Jacob Chagai said yesterday marked the restart of their legislative endeavors.
She underscored that recess is always a time for them to re-energize by collecting views and concerns from our constituencies.
“Recess period is the time we usually close our mouths and open our ears and when we commence a session of the assembly like today, we are expected to open our mouths wide and close our ears,”
“It is from this core role and expectation from us that we speak loud on the public issues of concerns that we have gathered which is an assignment we are given by the people we represent and are accountable to,” she said.
The mandates of any legislative assembly in a democratic world are the same which are divided into three major functions such as legislation or lawmaking, oversights, check and balance and representation.
She promised that they will have to focus on serious oversight functions during their session.
“We will request ministers from the governor to attend to the assembly calls; this is for our success and improvement on our performances” she said.
The speaker revealed that they had earlier summoned some of the ministers but they didn’t appear before the assembly, adding that summon is not a dismissal as it is often misunderstood.
“It’s rather an enquiry into something which is not clear to the parliament. A public officer is normally called or summoned to inform the parliament on something which is not clear” she added.
She said that the State parliament had experienced a lot of challenges during the first session after its reconstitution.
Speaker Agum informed Governor Tueny that there was insufficient budget to carry out parliamentary activities, saying MPs started the first session without rehabilitation outfits, sittings allowances, among others.
“We have problem of mobility that saw every member of this parliament walking to and from whether in the rain or in the hot sun, the cars which were promised did not come,”
She called on the governor to pay the arrears of rehabilitation outfits, sitting allowances and even air tickets for the state parliamentarians.
She also said that the budget of this FY 2022-2023 should address key budgetary issues of the assembly especially chapters two and three.