Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, says the increase in the parliament’s standing committees from 109 to 134 was to allow for better legislative oversight of the federal government’s ministries, departments and agencies by the legislature.

Mr Abbas said this during an interactive session with journalists in the National Assembly Complex on Tuesday, decried the aim was to share leadership positions among members.

He noted that some of the house’s committees were too large for effective oversight functions.

“For example, the Committee on Tertiary Education had over 300 agencies to supervise and at the end of every year, they will end up not being able to oversee some of them. So we have to break it down to allow for efficiency and to put eyes on what the executive is doing,” Mr Abbas explained.

He added, “The committee has been broken into committees on University Education, Federal Polytechnic, Federal Colleges of Education and TETFund.”

The speaker said all standing committees were told to ensure efficiency in their work.

According to him, a monitoring system is in place to monitor and evaluate the works of the various committees.

Mr Abbas, however, assured that under his leadership, the existing relationship with the media will be strengthened. The speaker assured that the parliament will carry out a quarterly media briefing on its activities to enlighten Nigerians on the steps taken by the house.

(NAN)