Imo State House of Assembly members have been advised to sit up and perform their legislative functions in order to give those that elected them into office quality representation.
Bishop Emmanuel Maduwike, JP, of the Anglican Diocese of Ikeduru gave the charge when he spoke to newsmen, recently, in a function.
He decried a situation where a sitting governor is busy destroying valuable infrastructure that cost a state billions of tax payers' money, and at the same time replacing them with poor quality work without any recourse to the feelings of the masses.
The Prelate lamented that Imo State in the past six years had been a huge construction site, yet there is no tangible project that stands the test of time, instead, roads have been over-flooded and those constructed a year ago had collapsed.
Civil servants and pensioners, he said, had been on the receiving end with short-payments and non-payment at all, leading to untold hardship and death.
Bishop Maduwike thanked the Federal Government for disclosing how much each state received from the Paris Club refund, and at the same time pleaded with the Imo State government to use the fund to clear all pension arrears, and make-ups for the civil servants’ short-payment.
The furious prelate lamented that the Imo State civil service had been destroyed without any body raising an eye brow, including elected representatives in all levels of governments who stand aloof as impunity takes the centre stage.
He lambasted members of the Imo State House of Assembly for failing to exercise their legislative powers to check the excesses of the executive.
According to the prelate, the beauty of democracy is checks and balances which is enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as separation of powers.
The prelate said that section 100-sub-section (1) of the Federal constitution conferred on the state legislature the powers to make laws for the good government of the state.
The same constitution, according to Bishop Maduwike, also empowers the legislature to carry out over-sight functions, and at the same time check the excesses of the executive. He regretted that our honourable members have today been made tax collectors and chairmen of various task-force groups.
He queried; “were these people elected to represent their people or were they elected as tax collectors and taskforce chairman?”
Bishop Maduwike pleaded with them to sit up and do the work for which they were elected to or face the anger of the electorate who were not happy with their poor performance.
Those in leadership, he said, should rule with the fear of God.
(c)
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