Government news source, 4 November 2020
The Cross River State House of Assembly has engaged in a capacity building workshop for members organised by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in partnership with the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) held at Nike Lake Resort, Enugu from the 21st to 22nd of October, 2020.
At the two-day Capacity Building Workshop for members and selected key Management staff, the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Eteng Jonah Williams in his remarks lauded Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) for the magnanimity in organizing the workshop in spite of the challenges in the country.
“As a third termed lawmaker, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation is not new to me as I have had the privilege to participate in their previous trainings but I must say this is the best I have attended,
from the carefully selected topics to the excellent resource persons, no doubt, the gains from this workshop will impact positively in our legislative work wen we return,” the Speaker said.
According to him, as Legislators, the importance of training and re-training cannot be overemphasized.
“On behalf of my dear colleagues, we are indeed grateful to Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation and the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) for taking us through such impactful exercise”, he said.
Resident Representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Dr Vladimir Kreck in a welcome address said that; “We believe that the State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria should play a more decisive role in governing their states. This is the reason why we have been supporting democratic governance on state level for more than a decade. And this is also the reason why we approached the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies about a year ago with a request to partner with us to elevate our services to a new quality”.
Also, the Director-General, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Prof. Abubakar Suleiman, in his remarks, pointed out that the lawmakers must begin the process of building internal capacity within the Assembly, preparatory to full autonomy by understanding its implications on legislative administration and parliamentary business as lawmakers and career officers needed to understand the various roles and responsibilities that the autonomy seeks to put on them.
Meanwhile, among papers delivered at the training programme included: “Legislative Agenda and Benchmarking the activities of the State House of Assembly, Overview of Legislative Practices and Procedure, Management Models of Parliaments and State House of Assembly Service Commission, Financial Autonomy of State Houses of Assembly and LGAs in Budget Budget Management Processes , Legislative Code of Conducts and Ethics”, amongst others.
