House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Health Care Services to conduct a public hearing on the increasing incidents of food poisoning in Nigeria.
The House said it is saddened by the report of the death of especially children arising from food poisoning.
This was as the parliament also expressed dissatisfaction with the Electricity Distribution Companies of Nigeria, DISCOs, for not connecting procured transformers to the national grid.
The resolutions followed two separate motions considered at the plenary.
While the first one titled “Need to Address the Increasing Incidents of Food Poisoning in Nigeria”, was sponsored by Hon. Simon Chukwuemeka Atigwe, the second captioned “Need to Address the Power Outage in Baruten/Kaiama Federal Constituency of Kwara State
Occasioned by Non-powering/Connection of Transformers by the Electricity Distribution.
Companies of Nigeria”, came from Hon. Mohammed Omar Bio.
Moving the first motion, Atigwe noted the increasing incidents of food poisoning which have led to loss of lives across the country especially among Children.
“In some cases majority of the children died after eating certain meals prepared by their parents, while those who did not die immediately were rushed to hospitals for medical attention
“In cases where the death of children occurs, such parents live in agony and with the psychological trauma of losing their children.
“The need to urgently address the deadly incidents of food poisoning in Nigeria by adopting measures to prevent such occurrences”.
His motion was adopted by the House after securing a majority vote.
The Committee was given 4 weeks within which to conclude and report back to the House for further legislative action.
On the other hand, Hon. Bio while moving his motion said that the DISCOs have refused to call connect transformers procured by lawmakers to assist their constituencies.
“The reasons for electing Lawmakers into the National Assembly is to provide adequate representation for their Constituents which includes the facilitation of projects that are beneficial to their constituents.
“Members of the National Assembly have facilitated different types of projects including transformers to provide electricity supply as part of their constituency development programmes, but that has become a herculean task for the Electricity Distribution Companies of Nigeria (DISCO) to connect the Transformers thus leaving some of them abandoned, unused, depreciated, thereby questioning the good intentions of the Federal Government at developing/connecting all parts of the country to the national grid. A good example is Ilesha Baruba, Gwanara, Gure in Baruten Local Government Area and Tungan Atiku, Tungan-Maje town in Kaiama Local Government Areas of Kwara State.
“If this challenge is not addressed urgently by the appropriate authorities, it will make people lose confidence in the government of the day”, he said.
Adopting the motion, the House condemned in strong terms the attitudes and activities of agencies, companies, and parastatals, it said we’re
frustrating the delivery of dividends, such as the acts of the Electricity Distribution Companies of Nigeria, DISCOS, of democracy to the citizenry.
While urging the Minister of Power to direct the DISCOS to immediately connect and energize the transformers facilitated by the lawmakers to save the citizens from perpetual darkness, the House mandated its Committees on Power and Legislative Compliance to ensure implementation of the resolution.
Source: Vanguard
