Last week, the Oransaye Committee Report, which had been gathering dust on a shelf in Aso Rock Villa, was suddenly resurrected and found its way back into Nigeria’s political discourse. The Federal Executive Council at its weekly meeting thought it wise to revisit and implement the recommendations of the report so as to cut the cost of governance.
The 800-page Report had found that there existed 541 parastatals and recommended the scrapping of 88 agencies, merger of 52 and the return of 14 other parastatals to some ministries. This, according to the Report, would help solve the problem of duplication, cut inefficiencies, reduce redundancies, block leakages and ensure efficiency in the public service.
Fair enough, the Tinubu administration has moved towards restoring sanity to governance by cutting on the number of officials that accompany the president on official trips. However, this and other such measures are not far reaching enough to clean the rot that has eaten deep into the entire fabric of governance in our country. Government must take more deliberate and well defined steps towards achieving set goals.
In that regard, it is pertinent to ask, how can President Tinubu, who has appointed 48 ministers – the largest cabinet in the history of the country – convince Nigerians that he truly seeks to cut the cost of governance?
Certainly, this amounts to double standards as the administration is saying one thing while doing the direct opposite. Can the emoluments of these ministers not pay the salaries of many of these civil servants whose parastatals are being targeted?
The costs of the SUVs these ministers use as official vehicles and their retinue of aides – most of whom are idle – are a huge burden on the nation’s finances. Does the Tinubu administration in all sincerity want to lead by example?
Another unnecessary drain on the nation’s commonwealth is the nation’s bicameral legislature. As citizens continue to grapple with a record spike in inflation, necessitated by some of the harsh economic policies of the administration, the National Assembly’s annual budget presents a perfect picture of a country were penury exists side by side with obscene official opulence and profligacy.
This bicameral legislature is a duplication of law making. Obviously, would it not be more reasonable and economical for the country to have a single parliament.
No doubt, the huge amounts that would be saved from scrapping the two-tier parliament would go a long way in solving some of the country’s financial problems.
Considering the Federal Government’s 2024 budget, there are no indications that it intends to chart a different course from those of past administrations. Once again, humongous sums have been budgeted for the upkeep of the first family, even as the living conditions of citizens continue to plummet. Nigerians believe that it is the height of insensibility to the current suffering of citizens for a whopping N1.5 billion to be budgeted for the purchase of SUVs for the office of the First Lady.
That is not all. N4 billion has also been budgeted to renovate the Aso Rock Villa which was renovated by the Buhari regime just before its exit last year. As if that was not enough, about N3 billion was set aside for the renovation of the Vice President’s residence when the Federal Capital Territory Minister had slotted N15 billion in its budget for the same purpose.
For the reforms to make sense, the estimated N350 billion savings from the implementation of the Oransaye Report should be ploughed into the agricultural sector to help the country fight the debilitating wave of food crisis sweeping across the country. Also, the administration must be sincere in carrying out the reforms.
Undertaking cosmetic measures to score cheap political points will do the country no good. It will only exacerbate the problems the Oransaye Report set out to eliminate.
*(AN EDITORIAL OF THE NIGERIA STANDARD NEWSPAPER, March 6, 2024)
