The federal government has approved the extension of the ongoing National Conference by six weeks.

This is contained in a new work plan released Wednesday evening by the leadership of the conference.

Under the new arrangement, the conference will now end on July 31 instead of the earlier date of June 19 when the dialogue had been programmed to end. Monday July 21-Thursday 24 July has been devoted to consideration of draft report of the conference.

Also, Week 20 (Monday July 28-Thursday July 31) will be for production and signing of the final report.

Consequently, the sitting of the 20 standing committees of the conference have been extended by two weeks to enable them complete their works.

The conference’s spokesman, James Akpandem, said that the new date for committees to conclude work is now May 15.
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Some committees had complained that the seven days given to them to conclude work and submit reports was inadequate considering the enormity of work that needed to be done.

“The committees have up to Thursday, May 15 to conclude work and submit reports. The conference secretariat does not have the power to extend the conference duration. It has however, granted the request of the leadership of the committees to allow them up to May 15 to conclude their work,” he said.

Akpandem explained that the extension became necessary because public holidays had eaten into the time allotted to the committee work.

Similarly, the chairman, committee on science, technology and development, Daniel Maddo, said the committee needed extension of time to enable it to do a thorough work.