The Nasarawa state House of Assembly in Conjunction with Multiventures Resources Limited, Jos, Plateau state, has retrained the state legislators, management staff and secretaries of the House standing committees on how to conduct public hearing for effective legislative proceedings and good governance.
The Three Day re- training workshop 2020 had its theme ” Conducting Public Hearing As a Crticial Tool in Legislative Practice and Procedure is currently on going in Jos, Plateau State Capital.
The Speaker of the House Rt. Hon.Ibrahim Balarabe Abdullahi while declaring the workshop open said that the people of the state should expect more vigorous and robust legislative proceedings after the workshop.
“First and foremost, I want to commend His Excellency, Gov. Abdullahi Sule for approving the workshop as the workshop will go a long way in boosting our legislative practice and procedure.
“I want to assure His Excellency of our readiness to give his administration the much needed support and cooperation to succeed.
“I also want to urge all of us to take the workshop with all level of seriousness it deserves in order to acquire more knowledge on how to conduct public hearing so as to ensure peace and good governance in our state and the country at large.
“As public hearing is key to legislative practice. Public hearing could be conducted for different purposes, it could be for legislative, oversight and investigative so as to promote effective and good governance,” he said .
Ibrahim Balarabe also urged the members, management staff and secretaries of the various committees to be good ambassadors of the state while in Jos.
He assured of his leadership readiness to give his necessary support to the Consultant of the workshop in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the workshop.
The speaker further assured the staff of his continued commitment to key into good policies and programmes that would boost their morale for enhance legislative activities and for the overall development of the state.
While presenting paper on the topic Public hearing: Theory and Practice, Prof. Bonaventure Haruna of Political Science Department, University of Jos said that public hearing is very importance in which lawmakers get the views of the public on critical issues that affect public lives.
“The theme of the workshop is timely as Public Hearing is a mechanism by which parliamentary committees obtain information, expert opinions and alternative perspectives on a proposal pieces of legislation..
He, however, enumerated the criticism of public legislative hearing to include democratic ritual, lack of dialogue, expert citizen divides, high- jacked by stakeholders and political posturing among others.
The professor also made a second presentation on Planning and Organization of Legislative Public Hearing
It would be recalled that the workshop featured different paper presentations, questions and answers as members contributed positively during the workshop.
