Senate approves extension of National Assembly staff service year to 65

The Senate has passed a bill for an extension of the service year for staff of the National Assembly to 65 years.

The House of Representatives had previously approved the extension of service years for staff in the parliament from 60 to 65 years.

The Senate passed the bill for concurrence at Thursday’s plenary after it was earlier rejected by the Red Chamber on February 22.

The document titled: “A Bill for an Act to make provision for retirement age of staff of National Assembly Service and For Other Related Matters,” was re-presented for concurrence by the Senate Leader, Bamidele Opeyemi.

Opeyemi, who led the debate on the matter, said that corrections had been made to the bill with proper and more extensive inputs in the various clauses.

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He said special regard had also been paid to global best practices, including the definition of who a legislative officer is in civilised and more advanced democracies, especially the United States and the United Kingdom.

“These countries had adopted the standard we want to adopt, in terms of the need to establish and strengthen institutional memories by ensuring a certain retirement age threshold for legislative officials,” the Senate leader added.

Opeyemi said he had done a lead debate and urged the Senate to pass the bill for concurrence.

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