By Leke Baiyewu, Punch Newspaper
The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, passed a bill for its third reading to create a South-South Development Commission despite the existence of the Niger Delta Development Commission. The House had earlier on Tuesday considered and adopted the report by the Committee on Justice on the bill.
The legislation is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish South-South Development Commission charged with Responsibility to Receive and Manage Funds from the Federation Account Allocation and Other Sources, Donations, Grants and Aids for the Integration, Development, Resolution of Infrastructural Deficit, Militancy, Communal Crisis as Well as Tackle Ecological and Environmental Problems; and for Related Matters.’
The House had earlier in October passed bills seeking to establish a South-East Development Commission, South-West Development Commission, North-Central Development Commission and a North-West Development Commission.
The SEDC proposal is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish the South-East Development Commission to serve as a Catalyst to Develop the Commercial Potentials of the South East, Receive and Manage Funds from Allocation of the Federation for the Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Reparation for Houses and Lost Businesses of Victims of the Civil War, and Address any other Environmental or Developmental Challenges; and for Related Matters.’
The SWDC proposal is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish South–West Development Commission charged with Responsibility, among others, to Receive and Manage Funds from Allocation of the Federation Account, including Donations and Gifts, the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of Roads, Houses and other Infrastructural Damages Suffered by the Region and the Need to Tackle the Ecological Problems and any other Related Environmental or Developmental Challenges in the South West States; and for Related Matters.’
The NCDC proposal is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish North Central Development Commission charged with Responsibility among other things to Receive and Manage Funds from Allocation of the Federation Account for the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of Roads, Houses and Other Infrastructural damages suffered by the Region as a result of the effects of the Communal Crisis as well as tackle the Ecological Problems and any other Related Environmental or Developmental Challenges in the North Central States; and for Related Matters.’
The NWDC proposal is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish North–West Development Commission charged with the responsibility, among other things, to receive and Manage Fund from Allocation of the Federation Account and International Donors for the Settlement, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Roads, Houses and Business Premises Destroyed by Multinational Crisis as well as Tackling Menace of Poverty, Literacy Level, Ecological Problems and any other Related Environmental or Developmental of Challenge in the North West State; and for Related Matters.’
All the six geopolitical zones will now have development commissions, as the NDDC already exists for the oil-producing states in the South-South and some in the South-East and South-West.
There is also the North-East Development Commission, which was established in the aftermath of the Boko Haram insurgency in the geopolitical zone.
Though the NDDC covers all the states in the South-South, states in other geopolitical zones are under it, namely Ondo (South-West), Abia and Imo (both in the South-East).
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