The Speaker of the House of People’s Representatives, Abadula Gemeda admitted that the approval of the Lease Proclamation at the beginning of the concluding Ethiopian year was rushed.
“The new lease proclamation was approved in the first session before taking deep and thorough discussion in the House. I got a big lesson from that,” said Abadula on Monday, July 16 in a briefing he gave journalists about the performance of the houses over the year.
The new lease policy adopted this year remains very controversial to this day. The Minister of Urban Development and Construction, Mekuria Haile, has appeared time and again before different gatherings like a workshop to convince the public who are questing the proclamation.
When questioned about the extension of the house’s recess in relation to the health of Ethiopian Prime Minister (PM), Abadula dismissed reports of there being any connection; although for the first time in 17 years, the annual session of the parliament was extended beyond the July 7 deadline by a week.
“The Speaker of the House has the right to extend the session. This was the first legal ground for the extension of the session. The Prime Minister usually attends the closing day because there has always been a budget reduction motion. But this year we did not have that kind of budget reduction motion. So, the PM presence was not that relevant attributing the delay to program budgeting,” he said.
The Ethiopian Constitution Chapter 6, Article 58 and sub-article 2 states that the annual session of the house shall begin on Monday of the final week of the Ethiopian month of Meskerem [late September] and end on the 30th day of the Ethiopian month of Sene [early July].
The House gave the green light for the approval of the proposed Ethiopian budget for 2012/13 budget year on July 17, almost a week after its normal schedule.
In regards to the House’s performance, the approval of parliamentary bill grew 64 percent in comparison to the previous year, while the number of proclamations approved went up to 49 this year.
Abadula singled out hosting the Pan-African parliamentary meeting that brought together parliamentarians from 46 countries African countries as a great achievement; successfully hosted outside of South Africa for the first time ever.
He also said that despite the controversy created in connection with the lease proclamation the performance of the parliament was successful.