There was confusion yesterday over the Water Resources Bill as two leaders of the House of Representatives vehemently disagreed over public hearings on it.
The Deputy Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Peter Akpatason in an interview with newsmen said public hearings would be held on the controversial bill, which was abandoned by the eighth National Assembly.
However, the Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Abubakar Fulata, who reintroduced the bill on July 23, 2020, said there would be no more public hearings on it.
He said a public hearing on the bill was held in the eighth National Assembly, adding that there was no need for another in the current ninth assembly.
But some National Assembly members from the Middle Belt and southern parts of the country vowed to resist any attempt to pass the bill.
The executive had in 2017 presented the controversial bill to both chambers of the National Assembly. The bill seeks to transfer the control of water resources from the states to the Federal Government.
The Senate on May 24, 2018, considered the executive bill for second reading, during which senators were divided across regional lines.
While northern senators supported the proposal and its objectives, their southern counterparts opposed it.
The controversy the bill generated frustrated its passage by both the Senate and House of Representatives.
The proposed law is titled, ‘A Bill for An Act to Establish a Regulatory Framework for the Water Resources Sector in Nigeria, Provide for the Equitable and Sustainable Redevelopment, Management, Use and Conservation of Nigeria’s Surface Water and Groundwater Resources and for Related Matter.’
When passed, it will concentrate the control of water resources around rivers Niger and Benue as well as be other water ways which cut across 20 states in the hands of the Federal Government.
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