The House of Representatives Committee on Civil Society Organisations and donor agencies has given a 48-hour ultimatum to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mr. Clem Agba to appear before it.
The committee chairman, Hon. Kabir Idris made the statement during the committee’s session on Tuesday, where the minister was represented by a Director of the ministry, Oluseyi Fatuyi and an assistant Director Abdullahi Yakubu at an investigative hearing.
He said the Minister has refused to appear before the Committee on CSOs despite countless invitation letters written to his office.
Fatuyi while reacting to the lawmakers said that “Our minister has always expressed readiness to attend this meeting, so we are very sorry sir. In respect of his inability to properly communicate to the Committee a letter of his absence, we are sorry because it is not intentional it is just that something came up today and he had to delegate us. Up till last night, he was to make it.”
Hon. Elisha Simon Karu (APC, Gombe) said the Committee was not happy with the nonchalant attitude displayed by the minister for refusing to honour their invitation despite the current End SARS protest across the country which has made the youths direct their anger at lawmakers.
“I do not intend to disrespect you or your office in any way but Nigerians are there on the street calling the National Assembly out for the failure of our system. So we will not attend to anyone other than the minister to appear himself, we would not accept anything less”, he emphasized.
“The investigation of the committee is being delayed by the non-appearance of the minister, he said. There is no need continuing without the person in charge of the Ministry being here. We have a cordial relationship with the executive, but we must be respected.”
