The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the implementation of part of the 2012 Stephen Oronsaye Panel report which advised government to merge some parastatals, agencies, and commissions, in order to cut government’s spendings and other channels that unnecessarily take money from the nation.
Oronsaye’s report also recommended that other offices of the government should also be either subsumed, scrapped or relocated considering nature of their businesses as well as their importances to the nation’s development.
The decision, which was reached at FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu on Monday at the Villa, was to implement the over a decade report as part of the strategy by the apex government to cut cost of governance in the country.
Addressing pressmen after the meeting, the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, stated that the President Tinubu-led administration has approved wide-ranging reforms based on the Oransaye recommendations.
Idris said that the move is part of the government’s cost-cutting measure initiative to streamline governance.
He reassured workers that the implementation of the Oronsaye report would not affect jobs but would secure positions for all affected staff in the new organizations.
Also, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, stressed that there is need to reduce cost of governance and streamline efficiency across the governance value chain.
FEC also received a report from the inter-ministerial panel set up to review the affairs of the National Social Investment Programme.
The Council further approved the immediate restart of the direct payments to 12 million households comprising 60 million Nigerians with key provisos.
Recall that 12 years ago, the Stephen Oransaye report on reforming Nigeria’s federal agencies was submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan.
The 2011 report, commissioned by then-President Goodluck Jonathan, had called for the consolidation, merger or scrapping of numerous redundant and inefficient government agencies.
