Chief Of Staff to Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila says, “there is no timeline yet for the implementation of the Steve Oronsaye’s Report to merge some parastatals, agencies, and some commissions.
He stated this on Tuesday, during an interview after an official visit to the headquarters of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in Abuja.
The Chief Of Staff debunked claims of the report being stalled adding that, “the Federal Government is working out all necessary modalities to ensure a smooth run of the policy when implemented.”
“Oronsaye’s Report is being worked upon. Yes, we’ve been talking about this for months now but anything worth doing is worth doing properly.
“It is not as easy as it sounds. A committee has been set up looking at it and I am sure very soon, the final report will be out and implementation will begin.
“I can’t give an exact timeline but soo. We don’t want to sacrifice thoroughness on the altar of anxiety or anxiousness of getting things done. It will be done soon,” he assured the people.
There were some motions without movement on the 12-year-old report during ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years in office but the new government said implementing the report aligned with its cost-cutting measures.
So, in February, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by President Bola Tinubu approved the full implementation of the Oronsaye report to merge some parastatals, agencies, and some commissions, while others will be subsumed, scrapped or relocated.
This, according to the government, was in line with the need to reduce the cost of governance and streamline efficiency across the governance value chain.
To ensure the implementation of the proposed changes, FEC set up an eight-man committee with mandate to implement the mergers, scrapings, and relocations within 12 weeks.
However, six months later, the report has not been implemented. Rather, the President in July created a Ministry of Livestock Development from the Agriculture Ministry, a development that has been met with mixed reactions.
Back in 2011, then President Goodluck Jonathan set up the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies with Oronsaye as chairman.
On April 16, 2012, the committee submitted an 800-page report identifying, amongst several other things, overlapping agencies, causing wastage in expenditure.
The report said there were 541 parastatals, commissions and agencies and recommended that 263 of the agencies should be reduced to 161, 38 agencies abolished and 52 merged.
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