The Cross River House of Assembly has passed 28 bills within the last 12 months, Dr Davies Etta, the Deputy Majority Leader of the House, has said.
Etta, the lawmaker representing Abi Constituency, disclosed this on Thursday, in Calabar.
The 10th Assembly was inaugurated on June 13, 2023.
Etta explained that from the 28 bills, only eight had been assented to by Governor, Bassey Otu.
He noted that the 10th Assembly represented the hope and aspirations of the people of Cross River, adding that the bills were all people oriented.
“Members of the 10th Assembly have been nothing but dutiful and people oriented as bills passed, motioned moved, and oversight function are factored to have direct impact on the people.
“Aside the 28 bills passed, several others are at various stages; some have gone through the first reading, some second reading and some at the committee level,” he said.
The Abi representative debunked the claim that the assembly was on witch-hunting level owing to its position to probe the privatisation of some of the assets of the state by the immediate past government.
According to him, the assembly’s oversight functions have been commended by many, especially in the area of reclaiming assets and properties belonging to the state.
“For instance, the assembly, through its oversight function was able to discover and recover several heavy duty trucks that found their way into private hands at Obudu.
“Outside the state, we were also able to recover a four-story building in Abuja that was given away for 30 years at a meager sum of N6 million annually.
“We are also investigating few other facilities of the state that were privatised with documents that were not explicit.
“The insinuation that we are witch-hunting is wrong; Prof. Ben Ayade who was the immediate past governor remains our leader and we are appreciative of some of the things he did.
“We are only carrying out our constitutional responsibilities and nothing more,” he said.
Speaking on the relationship between the executive and the assembly, Etta who is also the special adviser to the Speaker, said that it was nothing but cordial.
“Been a former lawmaker himself, the governor has given us free hand to operate; he does not interfere in the house activities and had been attending to our resolutions,” he said.
