Nigeria to trim cost of governance, to cut agencies
By Tanko Mohammed
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the implementation of the report that recommended the trimming of agencies as part of efforts to save cost of governance.
The government, however, assured workers that the exercise would not affect jobs as workers are gripped with fear.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, had confirmed instruction to the head of civil service (HoS) and secretary to the government of the federation (SGF) to review the recommendations of the Stephen Oronsaye presidential panel report on MDAs and make recommendations to government on modalities for the merger/scrapping of the MDAs.
The 800-page Oronsaye-led committee report that was presented to the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan is centered on restructuring and rationalisation of federal government parastatals, commissions and agencies with a focus on cutting cost of governance.
As part of efforts towards cutting the cost of governance, the Buhari administration is said to have approved the immediate merger of 102 federal agencies in line with recommendations of the Oronsaye report.
The agencies under consideration in the report were grouped into six categories of recommendation as follows: merger, abolishment, self-funding, commercialisation, privatisation and staff audit/management.