The House of Representatives has called on the Federal Government (FG) to immediately reconstitute the Board of parastatals and agencies, which were dissolved by President Muhammadu Buhari on 16th July 2015. Moving the motion at the plenary session of Wednesday, 26th October 2016, Hon. Abdullahi Umar Faruk (APC:Bauchi) stated that the continued failure of theFG to reconstitute the Boardssince their dissolution last year had created severe economic implications for the country. He also noted that the process of referring directives that would ordinarily have required the attention of the Board to the President was cumbersome and affected the pace of their activities.

Hon. Faruk also highlighted that the Boards of Parastatals are generally saddled with the important responsibility of setting out extensive economic, financial, operational and administrative guidelines and targets in addition to other functions such as policy management and the monitoring of institutional projects. Finally, he drew attention to the absence of the Boards of the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the National Universities Commission (NUC), which he described as creating major challenges to their operations since critical decisions had been left unattended to.

The matter, which was unanimously adopted, has been referred to the Committee on Governmental Affairs for further legislative action. The said Committee is also expected to lay its report within four (4) weeks.