President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval for the implementation of the recommendations of the 2011 Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies headed by Steve Oronsaye, a former Head of Service (HoS) of the Federation has sparked a new wave in the cost of governance in Nigeria.

Over the years, analysts have called for a reduction in the cost of governance in Nigeria. The cost of governance in the country is considered to be one of the highest in the world. Governance in Nigeria has metamorphosed from the efficient and effective operations of the Public Service through core policy implementation to active participation in all sectors of the economy to the establishment of Agencies, parastatals , and commissions, which serve as the drivers of the socio-economic objectives of the Federal Government. Some of these agencies, parastatals , and commissions, which were initially established as ad hoc bodies to address specific challenges of their time have over time become permanent features of governance in the country, even as some of them perform over-lapping functions with those of the mother ministry. This not only resulted in duplication of responsibilities but also increased the cost of governance significantly.

To address the problem, then President Goodluck Jonathan, on August 18, 2011, inaugurated the Oronsaye-led seven-member Presidential Committee to advise the government on ‘the Restructuring and Rationalisation of the Federal Government’s Agencies, Parastatals and Commissions’. The terms of reference were to, “Study and review all previous reports and records on the restructuring of Federal parastatals and advise on whether they were still relevant; examine the enabling Acts of all the federal agencies, parastatals and Commissions and classify them into various sectors; examine critically, the mandate of the existing federal agencies, parastatals and ommissions and determine areas of overlap or duplication of functions and make appropriate recommendations to either restructure, merge or scrap some to eliminate such overlaps, duplications or redundancies; and advise on any other matter incidental to the foregoing which might be relevant to the desire of government to prune down the cost of governance.” The committee submitted its report in April 2012, following which Jonathan set up a White Paper Committee to review the recommendations. The White Paper was published in March 2014 with amendments to the original recommendation.

However, the Oronsaye report as well as the White Paper was ‘dumped and abandoned’ in the archives for the past six years, even as the number of statutory and non statutory Federal Agencies, Parastatals and Commissions has increased from an estimated 541 at the time the committee submitted its report to an estimated of close to 1,000.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, who disclosed the directive of President Buhari for the implementation of the report during a recent Channels TV programme, Politics Today, said the Head of Civil Service (HoS) and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) have already been informed of the development for necessary action.

She said, “We are looking at doing that (reducing cost of governance). The President has approved that this administration should implement the recommendations of the Oronsaye report. So, the Oronsaye report is a report that has reviewed the whole of the size of government. It has made very significant recommendation in reducing the number of agencies, merging some agencies together.”

The approval for implementation of the Oronsaye report after six years has generated mixed reactions as stakeholders weigh what the eventual outcome of the implementation will be.

Mixed reactions

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), has for instance cautioned against a hasty implementation of the report without interfacing with the Congress.

President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba said the directive to implement the report is vague and not clear on whether the Federal Government is pushing for the implementation of the Oronsaye committee’s report submitted in April 2012 or the White Paper on the report released in March 2014.

He warned that while the NLC supports any exercise aimed at making the Federal Agencies, Parastatals and Commissions more efficient and effective as well as reducing the cost of governance, it will oppose any exercise that will lead to the mass sack of workers.

He said, “I have looked at the Steve Oronsaye report, but there is also the White Paper. We don’t know which one they want to implement, we don’t have any problem with the White Paper. After the main committee which made some far-reaching recommendations, there was a White Paper which tried to balance some areas where there were controversies. We should realise that merging agencies, parastatals, and commissions also requires amending their existing laws. Some of these agencies, parastatals, and commissions were established by law and theretofore clearly speaking, merging or abolishing them cannot happen overnight. They were put in place because of the needs and exigencies at that time. We will interface with the government to know which of the documents they are using so that we can also ensure that jobs are not lost because the essence is to protect jobs and bring about efficiency and productivity. If the essence is about protecting jobs and also ensure that the wastages are curtailed, we are for that but if it is targeted at job loses, certainly we will not support such because we are in a situation where youth unemployment in Nigeria is very high and we will not be part of compounding the problem, we should look for solutions. But clearly speaking, I think that the White Paper presented a balanced approach. So, we will interface with them to see which of the documents they will be using, but in any case, I think that Labour is a strategic partner in addressing those issues, so we will interface to find out what they want to do because there is no clear picture.”

The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) Resource Centre however commended the presidential directive to implement the Oronsaye report, saying it is a right step in the right direction. The Centre said merging of the Federal Agencies, Parastatals and Commissions must also be backed with sacrifices expected to be made by political office holders to cut down on the cost of governance.

HEDA Chairman, Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, described the revisit to the Oronsaye Report, which had been gathering dust in government shelf for four years as commendable as the country needs a strategic intervention that will include reduction of government parastatals and slashing of salaries and emoluments of politicians.

He said, “COVID-19 is not only affecting our beliefs and social lives, it is affecting our wealth as a country and as individuals. Nigeria needs radical interventions to be able to deal with the economic consequences of coronavirus. Nigerians want to see a drastic reduction in the salaries and privileges attached to public offices beginning from the Presidency, National Assembly, the State Governments and other institutions. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the Nigerian economy has continued to nosedive with oil prices going down to an all time low. As at May 1, the Workers Day, the Nigerian oil sold at a miserable $20 which is far less than the 2020 budget benchmark. The International Labour Organisation, (ILO) predicts the loss of no fewer than 25 million jobs across the world and about 460 enterprises will be hard hit. This has prompted many countries to propose cutting down on expenditure to meet public needs. We commend the approval of President Buhari on the need to implement the Oronsaye report. HEDA thinks this is a practical pathway to saving funds. Nigerians must unite to make sacrifices for the rebirth of the Nigerian economy. We need to merge the parastatals and make them more efficient in meeting public needs.”

But, Abiodun Aremu, Secretary General Joint Action Front, a coalition of several civil society organisations, argued that the approval to implement the Oronsaye report is part of the the game plans of the Bretton Woods Institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)aimed at rationalising and downsizing the public sector.

He said, “It is a continuation of the IMF conditionalities and imposition of the neo-liberal economic policies on Nigeria. The inimical policies, which is aimed at rationalising and downsizing the public sector should be rejected, struggled against and defeated by the labour movement and poor masses in the country because of its grave consequences for job losses, deepening of insecurity, mass poverty and attendant social crises. This is one more reason why JAF has consistently campaigned for system change in the direction of the socialist reconstruction of Nigeria in which public goods and commanding height of the economy are publicly and democratically controlled to ensure maximum benefits of all.”

Not the first attempt

The Oronsaye committee is however not the first time the government will look into the structure of the agencies, parastatals, and commissions with a view of reducing the cost of governance. In fact, the infrastructure deficit in Nigeria is seen as a fallout of the high cost of governance. For a long time now, a significant portion of budgetary allocations goes into overhead costs of payment of salaries rather than capital projects.

In the last two decades, no less than three different commissions have been inaugurated to review the structure of the Federal Agencies, Parastatals and Commissions in Nigeria and make recommendations on how to make them more effective, but none of the recommendations were implemented.

Some of these include the Allison Ayida Report inaugurated in 1995, which referred to the ‘Administrative Guidelines Regulating the Relationship between Parastatals and Government-owned Companies and the Government’ to buttress the point that Ministers should not function as chairmen of Government-owned agencies. There was also the Ahmed Joda Committee in 1999, which posited that the challenge of Ministerial interference and bureaucratic control needed to be eliminated in order to restore the effectiveness and efficiency of parastatals in the delivery of service to the public. In addition, the Joda Report alluded to the challenge of lack of managerial competence in some of the parastatals as well as the incompetence of some Boards.

Unfortunately, despite what appeared to be a unanimous conclusion of all these past committees on restructuring and rationalising the agencies and parastatals, their reports were never implemented due to political intrigues.

Oronsaye alluded to this fact in 2012 when his commission submitted their report. He noted that; “During the interactions with the MDAs, many of them claimed ignorance of the existence of government White Papers on previous reports with similar focus. Where they did, the decisions were either selectively implemented or not implemented at all, thereby vitiating government’s efforts at reducing its size. The Committee believes that if the cost of governance must be brought down, then both the legislature and judiciary must make spirited efforts at reducing their running costs as well as restructuring and rationalising the agencies under them since the three arms make up the government.”

Oronsaye Report vs the White Paper

At the time the Oronsaye committee was set up, there were an estimated 541 statutory and non-statutory government parastatals, commissions and agencies of which the report recommended a reduction in the number of statutory agencies from 263 to 161. Since then, rather than reduce, the number of government parastatals, commissions and agencies has increased to an estimated close to 1,000. Highlights of the recommendations includes the merger of Federal Government owned media outfits, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON) under a new name. This recommendation was rejected by the government. The committee also recommended the scrapping of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), which was rejected by the Government White Paper. The recommendation for abolishing of both Christian and Muslim Pilgrim Board and, that government should restrict the subsidy of foreign currency for such program was also rejected. The recommendation for the merger of the Economic and Financial Crimes commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), while the code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) should be made an anti-corruption tribunal specifically for corruption cases such that the enabling law of CCT be replaced with a newly enacted law accommodating the scope was rejected by the White Paper.

Need for enabling law

As it stands, the major obstacle to implementing the Oronsaye report could be the absence of an enabling law. Some of the agencies, parastatals and commissions are statutory bodies set up by an Act of the National Assembly and therefore cannot be abolished by a presidential directive. Some analysts identified political interference and interests as a major factor that could hinder the implementation. They observed that politicians with interests in leadership positions in the agencies pencilled down for axing would likely mobilise against the implementation of the report.

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Dust over cost of governance as Buhari resurrects Oronsaye report.