Exactly 10 years after the Stephen Orosanye Committee submitted its report with recommendations made to the federal government, the road to implementation has suffered lots of setbacks so much so that the received wisdom out there is that the outcome of the panel report is probably jinxed. Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf and Ernest Nwokolo in this report examines the issues
Concerned about the overbloated civil service and the humongous overhead cost the federal government had to tackle on a monthly basis in terms of wages and salaries, the right thing to do at the time was to prune down the running cost of governance and embedded wastages in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies and that led to the constitution of the Stephen Orosanye Committee.
Orosanye, at the time was the former Head of Civil Service of the Federation and so was actually well-suited to carry out that herculean assignment.
Why Orosanye Committee was set up
Specifically, the Oronsaye Committee set on August 18, 2011, with a mandate “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 commissions 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 the government to prune down the cost of governance.”
Outcome of the Orosanye panel report
However, the task of the Orosanye Committee which appeared simple on the surface like hot coal turned out to be too hot to handle as the federal government which ordinarily should have gone ahead to implement the recommendations has been rather noncommittal.
The drama ensued when in April 2012 the Orosanye Committee submitted its 800-page report, which recommended the abolition and merger of 102 government agencies and parastatals, among others, to drastically cut the cost of governance.
Checks by The Nation revealed that the Committee identified 541 government parastatals, commissions and agencies, both statutory and non-statutory, and recommended a reduction in the number of statutory agencies from 263 to 161; 38 agencies should be abolished; 52 agencies should be merged and 14 should revert to departments in ministries.
Government backtracks
However, the Government White Paper on the report spurned many of the recommendations while accepting a few ones.
Almost 80% of the recommendations were rejected. For example, it rejected the recommendation of the merger of NTA, FRCN and VON into one body to be known as Federal Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria (FBCN); rejected that the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria and the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission be abolished and their functions transferred to a department under Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and rejected that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the regulatory functions of Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) be brought together under a unified management structure to be known as the Communications Regulatory Authority of Nigeria.
But the government accepted a recommendation to scrap National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP); accepted that the trio of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency be merged into a new body to be known as the Federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA); and accepted that National Council of Arts and Culture be merged with the National Troupe and the National Theatre into one agency called National Council of Arts and Culture (NCAC).
Who will implement Government White Paper?
The federal government had two weeks ago received a report from the Ebele Okeke Committee that was constituted to draft a White Paper on the Ama Pepple Committee report on new Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions (PAC) created between 2012 and 2021.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, while receiving the report, described it as “a demonstration of the Federal Government’s commitment to repositioning the Public Service for effective service delivery.”
With the submission of the White Paper report, it is expected that the SGF will now forward the recommendations to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval before implementation.
Submitting the report at the SGF office, Okeke said in carrying out the assignment, “the committee considered the current economic challenges and requirement for government to utilise resources more efficiently to reduce cost of governance.”
Okeke said the committee also carried out a “content analysis of the legal framework setting up the PACs under review and analysis of the budgetary provisions of the PACs for the period under consideration.”
Read Also: Fed Govt promises to implement Orosanye Report, gets White Paper
Okeke said the committee also observed that most of the agencies created, especially under education and health, were through bills that emanated from the National Assembly. She, therefore, recommended that “it is important to engage and dialogue with NASS to generate an understanding to streamline the creation of new PACs.”
Responding, Mustapha disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration desires to restructure the public service to ensure efficiency.
Mustapha pointed out that the high cost of governance in Nigeria and revenue challenges being experienced in the midst of competing societal demands are of serious concern to the federal government, which has therefore made restructuring in the public service indispensable.
However in the view of analysts, it remains to be seen if the federal government will muster the political will to carry out the different recommendations suggested by the panel.
Governor’s rise to the occasion
Worried over the parlous state of the economy, the governors advised the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to take some urgent steps as part of coordinated efforts to instil fiscal discipline and prevent the nation from economic collapse.
The governors made the proposal at a meeting with Mr Buhari last month.
The governors advised the federal government to offer federal civil servants who are older than 50 years a one-off retirement package to exit the service.
They equally urged the federal government to immediately put an end to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s financing of the government’s budgetary expenditures and convert its N19 trillion debt into a 100-year bond.
The governors were concerned about the deteriorating state of the economy and the ripple effect on the nation ahead of the 2023 general elections.
In the proposal, the governors had reportedly urged President Muhammadu Buhari to begin the implementation of the updated Stephen Oronsaye Report, which recommended the merger and shutdown of agencies and parastatals with duplicated functions as a way to address inefficiency and reduce the cost of governance.
Other urgent steps advanced by the governors to prevent the nation from economic collapse included putting an end to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s financing of the government’s budgetary expenditures and converting its N19 trillion debt into a 100-year bond; eliminating petrol subsidy/under-recovery of N6-7 trillion; eliminate NNPC’s federation-funded projects; cap Social Investment Program (SIP) and National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) budgets to N200 billion from N570 billion; eliminate extra-Constitutional deductions from FAAC; reduce National Assembly constituency projects, among others.
Among other things, the governors the governors advised President Muhammadu Buhari to reduce expenditure immediately (with estimated savings in 2022 in brackets as well as begin implementation of the updated Stephen Oronsaye Report, expedite privatization of non-performing assets to mention just a few.
Differing views on governors’ proposal
But not a few people are averse to that decision, stressing that it has far reaching implication if not taken methodically.
Reacting to the proposal of the governors, the pioneer Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reform (BPSR), Dr. Goke Adegoroye, flayed the move, saying there is no record where such insipid contemplation had happened before. He urged federal, state and local governments to allow the system to purge itself by default.
Stakeholders view on implementation of Orosanye panel report
Meanwhile, stakeholders have urged the nation’s economic managers to take tough decisions bordering on the implementation of the Oronsaye report and diversify the economy.
They stated this while responding to the falling prices of oil in the global market, insisting that the federal government needs to take the tough measures in order to mitigate the current economic crunch.
Team Lead, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Developmental Law expert, Eze Onyekpere, stated that the present situation offers the federal government an opportunity to implement certain reforms to ensure fiscal responsibility.
Onyekpere said the Oronsaye’s Panel recommended governance reforms, review of health tourism by public officials, as well as review of activities of revenue generating agencies.
According to him, many revenue-generating agencies were not declaring their full earnings, despite the resources available to them, while stretching the budget with overhead expenses.
Echoing similar sentiments, the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise [CPPE] Dr. Muda Yusuf in an interview recently noted that at the centre of the economic crisis assailing the country is the nagging issue of wastages and leakages.
According to him, the many agencies of government have overlapping roles and as such, shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Yusuf, who is the immediate past Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), added: “If we implement the Oronsaye report, wholesale as it is, the kind of shock it will also create in the social environment will be very high because the number of people it will affect will be so much. It is something that we have to do in phases and gradually so that the shock on the system will not be so much. This is because civil servants in their nature cannot easily transition into entrepreneurship, many of them are not cut out for it.”
Some analysts, however, suggested that neglect of the industrial and manufacturing sectors of the Nigerian economy is a major bane of its economic growth.
A financial expert, Okechukwu Unegbu, urged federal government to take urgent steps to revive the manufacturing sector so as to boost the local economy. Unegbu said the absence of a vibrant industrial and manufacturing sector in the country had exacerbated various economic challenges, like rising inflation and an unstable currency (Naira).
According to him, the priority for government and its relevant agencies is to help the industries to start producing again.
“The federal government should address fundamental dislocations in the country, like boosting investment, reducing unemployment rate and cutting down on inflation,’’ he said.
Also an economist, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, has attributed the non-implementation of the Oransaye Panel Report on rationalisation of some agencies and parastatals to the weakness of the federal government.
Prof. Tella also identified what he termed as people with strong connections in the affected government’s agencies as another reason the report had remained untouched six years after it was submitted.
Speaking with The Nation, Tella who is lecturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, OOU, Ago Iwoye explained that these people with connections did not want the report implemented as doing so would amount lending hands to decision that will lead to loss of their jobs.
He noted that many of the agencies, ministries and parastatal were duplications of one another, saying it was not healthy for the nation’s economy.
According to him, it is the reason for the avoidable government’s huge wage bill.
He however advised the government to take decisive steps about the Oransaye Panel Report head on, reassign those still within working age to other areas of the economy while those who would be asked to go home by reason of old age or other considerations, should be paid off immediately.
He said, “Actually some of those agencies and parastatal have powerful people who don’t want to lose their jobs. When they merge or bring them together, definitely some people will lose their jobs and all these people they have connections and they use it to stall implementation, that is the situation as it were. And many of the ministries, agencies and parastatal are just duplication of the others and it is not good enough for the economy. That is what is making the payment system to be very huge. The way to go about it is not even to take it the National Assembly level because they will still go there to lobby the lawmakers to go against implementation of the report.
“The government should go ahead to take decision and do whatever it wants to do with the panel report and probably those of them that are still within the working age, can be reassigned to other ministries or areas of the economy. Even those that would be relieved of their jobs, the government should be ready to pay them immediately. As situation where people are relieved of their jobs and their entitlements not paid promptly, will not be good. That is why people are afraid and are doubting government’s promise to pay.
“So, government should be ready to pay all those who will be asked to go. When people in private sector want to downsize, they pay the people’s pension and entitlements and this make some to leave on their own but in public sector it is not like that. It is the weakness of the government that the panel report has not been implemented since.”