The National Assembly yesterday insisted that it stands by the resolution passed by both chambers, urging the federal government to revert to the previous prices of petroleum products and moved to treat the resolution as law.
Indications yesterday showed that the NASS was disappointed that its resolution on the reversal of fuel prices was not respected by the executive arm of government which was perceived to be inimical to the tenets of democracy and might have moved to re-define its relationship with the executive.
This is coming just as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senators and members of the House of Representatives, have been summoned to a meeting with President Obasanjo and the leadership of the PDP at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, yesterday apparently in connection with the stalemate on whether or not to reverse the prices. The announcement of the notice of the meeting billed to hold by 8 p.m. was made by the clerk of the NASS, Alhaji Ibrahim Salim.
The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on appropriate pricing of petroleum products and the Senate committee on labour had separately passed a resolution calling on the federal government to reverse the prices which the federal government apparently disregarded in preference for measures to cushion the effects of the price increases.
Fielding questions from National Assembly correspondents yesterday after the House ad-hoc committee rose from a meeting, the committee chairman, Hon Chidi Duru of the PDP from the Anambra State, said the committee has recommended to the House to call on federal government to obey the resolution which he said the House stands by.
He said the president and the executive arm of government ought to respect the NASS decision to foster mutual respect and promote democratic norms, adding that though the president had said at a meeting with the ad-hoc committee that he would do everything to solve the problem, the problem however appears far from being solved as the demand of the legislative arm of government appears to have been turned down.
“We recommended that to the leadership and there are other things the leade-rship may wish to direct on the way forward in terms of the relationship between the National Assembly and the executive arm of government.
Meanwhile, armed and combat ready soldiers in battle gear were stationed at the military cenotaph at the Three Arms Zone adjacent to the main entrance.
Senator Wada further said that labour’s resolve to hold a strike may not be ill-intentioned but insisted stakeholders matter. “The Senate expresses regret and sadness that the country had to be grounded,” he said.
In his turn, the chairman, Senate Rules and Business Committee, Senator Umar Ibrahim Tsauri, said the whole crisis centres around the refusal of the federal gove-rnment to respect resolutions of the National Assembly and court injunctions that restr-ained the federal government from further increasing in fuel prices.
Senator Tsauri said the only way out of the current crisis is going back to the status quo, lamenting that the NLC has not always been firm on its stand on the matter.
The lawmaker said the issue cannot be resolved by appealing to labour only, adding that any appeal on the matter should rather go to President Olusegun Obas-anjo.
Meanwhile, President Olusegun Obasanjo will today present the 2005 budget before a joint session of the National Assembly. This is the first time President Olusegun Obasanjo will present the budget three months before the end of the year.
The budget to be presented by President Olusegun Obasanjo will be a three rolling appropriation which is part of the innovations introduced as part of the reform programme to ease budget implementation.
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