•Nigerian Governors Forum
Following the order by President Bola Tínubu for the full implementation of the Oronsaye report, especially as it pertains to cutting down the cost of governance, the state governors are under pressure to toe the same line.
The pressure is coming from Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, who have challenged the state governments to scrap the humongous pensions for former governors and their deputies as well as the huge security votes which gulp billions of naira every month, reports Sunday Vanguard.
The CSOs who expressed doubts over the president’s commitment to implement the report noted that unless elected officeholders cut down on the number of political appointees, and scrapped security votes and pensions for former governors and their deputies, the implementation of the report would not yield the desired outcome.
President Tínubu had on Monday, announced the merging, subsuming, scrapping and relocation of several agencies of government.
The Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, headed by the former Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye, was set up by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011.
However, the committee submitted its report in 2012. The 800-page report revealed that there are 541 statutory and non-statutory Federal Government parastatals, commissions, and agencies. It recommended that 263 of the statutory agencies be slashed to 161; 38 agencies be scrapped; 52 be merged and 14 be reverted to departments in various ministries.
The report also recommends that the law establishing the National Salaries and Wages Commission be repealed and its functions taken over by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Responsibility Commission.
It advised the FG to merge the nation’s top three anti-corruption agencies—the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Code of Conduct Bureau.
The report, If implemented, will cause more than 100 heads of agencies and parastatals to lose their jobs and save the government over N862 billion.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has expressed doubts over the commitment of the Federal Government to implement the report.
Speaking, the Deputy Director, SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadare, asked the president to start by trimming down the number of his political appointees.
He said: “We need to be sure that whatever actions the government is taking does not end up as a kind of tokenism that doesn’t really solve the problem in the first place. Even the so-called implementation of Oronsaye report as is being done presently is not holistic and I doubt if it’s going to be effective to achieve what it ought to achieve which is to reduce the cost of governance.
“Even if state governors copy or emulate what the president has said or purports to do, it will not reduce the cost of governance at least, not in any way it will impact on the socioeconomic right of Nigerians until the security votes and pensions for former governors and their deputies which swallow billions of naira annually are scrapped.”
Constitutional Bureaucracy
Similarly, the African Action Congress, AAC, said the report was deficient in the area of reducing the cost of governance and would require a lot of constitutional bureaucracy to come to life.
The National Publicity Secretary of AAC, Femi Adeyeye, stated that the ultimate goal should be to reduce the cost of running the lifestyle of those in government, scrap the office of the first lady and that of the first son, and merge the Senate and House of Representatives where billions of naira are shared every month.
“I think the first port of call is to look at the report itself”, Adeyeye stated. “The Oronsaye report in itself is a bit outdated, needs a lot of constitutional bureaucracy to come to life and it’s somehow deficient in the area of reducing the cost of governance.
“Any ideological person will know that it’s just a means to reduce how much money is spent to cater for civil servants in MDAs. I agree with the issue of duplication of tasks that it aims to address and it is in line with our policy at the AAC, that some parastatals that government funds will have to go.
Scrap Senate
“An example is the Pilgrimage Commission that Tinubu just subsidized with billions. How does that make sense? It all shows that the whole report implementation announcement is a ruse. How do you say you want to reduce the cost of governance yet fund unproductive parastatals and your government has apparently created the Office of the First Lady and that of the First Son? That’s a joke.
“The ultimate goal should be to reduce the cost of running the lifestyle of those in government. Scrap office of the first lady and first son. Merge the Senate and House of Representatives where billions are shared every month, or better still, keep one. The resources of Nigerians should not be used to service a bicameral legislative system.”
Also contributing, the Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre, RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma, said the state and local governments should toe the line of the FG in reducing the cost of governance.
Public Problems
He said: “One of the challenges of governance and development in this country is the very high cost of governance that fritters away resources that ought to be used to address public problems like infrastructure, health, education and other things.
“So I think that it’s not just something that needs to be done at the federal but also the state and the local government levels. So reducing the cost of governance is something that needs to cut across all the ties of government. Reduce the number of appointed political officials, and parastatals that are not necessary.”
National Coordinator, Activists for Good Governance, Comrade Declan Ihekaire, said if the president was sincere, he should start by reducing the number of his political appointees.
Commonwealth
According to him, “The only way you can reduce the high cost of governance is not by merging agencies. It is by reducing the staff of those agencies and by reducing the number of political appointees such as SAs and SSAs.
Again, so many people are idle in the system. And when you have an SA, the SA will also have an SA, and the SA will also have a PA. And such duplications are eating so much in our economy. Those things, to me, are just offices meant for the boys to benefit from the commonwealth.
What is eating deep into our purse is the political appointees and not necessarily the civil servants”
