Mr. President: X-Raying Oronsaye report for implementation, by Dr Muiz Banire

 

Few weeks ago, I made a revisit to the issue of the cost of governance as an albatross in Nigeria, having sometime ago harped on the same issue in this column. During the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, this issue of paramount importance to the survival of the country was unsurprisingly treated with levity in the usual lackadaisical attitude of that administration. Despite drawing the attention of the administration to the Stephen Oronsaye Report on restructuring of government agencies, and the attendant drowning of the country under the yoke of the cost of governance, the administration never deemed it fit to pay any serious attention to the report in terms of implementation. The best effort made was lip service through the promise of implementation, which never materialized. As remarked above, it is not shocking as it is a notorious fact that, quite apart from the compromise involved in the failure to implement the report, the Buhari administration lacked both the political will and the focus to confront the implications of implementing the report.

The report, therefore, ended up being consigned to oblivion by the administration. With the ascension of the new leadership of President Bola Tinubu, I promptly revisited the issue, calling on Mr. President to confront the need for implementation of the report in the same manner in which the multiple windows of the foreign exchange allocation, and the removal of fuel subsidy was treated. Since that intervention, I am yet to hear of any pronouncement on the report, except for the unrelated news item that some parastatals and agencies might cease to be beneficiaries of statutory allocations in a period of time. This, to my mind, has no nexus with the issue at hand. I believe that the current administration still enjoys the political and general goodwill to muster the implementation of the Oronsaye report. The urgency involved lies in the reality that once the boards and managements of the statutory bodies are populated, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to implement the report again. This will signal the same fate and pattern as in the past administrations that the report has suffered. Hence, since the bodies are yet to be constituted, it is exigent and crucial that the report be implemented vis-a-vis the affected bodies, so that the eventual occupiers will not constitute a clog to the implementation of the report. 

For the benefit of those who may be ignorant of the genesis of the proliferation of the agencies, commissions and parastatals, it is apt to recall that the ugly trend commenced in 1970 when the then federal government, during the oil boom, decided to be active participants in the economic sectors of the country. The veering of the government into the economic arena was, however, through direct intervention by the creation of institutions, some of which were meant to be ad hoc. In fact, a sizeable number of the bodies set up then were meant to specifically address definite objectives. In the course of the establishment of the bodies, not only were some of the functions ascribed to the bodies overlapping, there were so many duplications and multiplication of functions and responsibilities. This unfortunate development, although well intended, became a permanent feature of successive administrations as they continued to establish more and more parastatals, agencies and commissions, most times without any rational justification. Most of those subsequently created were informed largely by political considerations than any economic or objective consideration. Regrettably, the trend has continued unabated with the last administration unjustifiably populating it further. I recall for example the creation of the Climate Change Commission.

Other than just creating ‘jobs for the boys’, there is no justification for the commission. As a unit, or at best a department, under the Ministry of the Environment, the objectives are being realized efficiently over time. The humongous structure birthed by the creation of the commission is as totally needless as the functions stated in the enabling act. Unfortunately, as these new bodies are mounted on the extant ones, the cost implication for the maintenance of the bodies continues to soar, thereby constituting economic plague on the country. At a point in the history of the country and I guess till date, the recurrent expenditure of the federal government continues to run at 70 percent as against the capital expenditure. For the uninitiated, the grave implication of this is that the growth of the country is stultified. Hence, no Nigerian ought to be surprised about the state of development, particularly infrastructure-wise, in the country.

Due to this bourgeoning cost of governance that has become an albatross on the country, the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan sought to address and curtail increasing astronomical rise in cost of governance by setting up a committee in 2011 to advise on the restructuring and rationalization of the bodies. The said committee was headed by former Head of Service of the Federation, Stephen  Oronsaye. For a proper contextualization of this discourse, I deem it apt to reproduce the terms of reference of the committee. From the terms also, one can appreciate the significance of the assignment. The committee was saddled with the responsibility 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 federal agencies, parastatals and commissions and classify them into 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 government to prune down the cost of governance.”

The ultimate summation of the recommendations of the committee is that the ministries be allowed to undertake more of the responsibilities appropriated to these bodies, which will lower the cost associated with their existence. Upon the submission of the report, the federal government set up a white paper committee to prepare its views on the recommendations, and this review panel, so to say, was headed by then Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN. A white paper, which is the expression of the government’s views on the recommendations of the Oronsaye Report, was finalized in 2014 but, shamefully, was never implemented. Before proceeding to decompose the report, permit me to point out the fact that since the submission of the report in 2011 and till date, more proliferations have rather taken place. To this end, the report might not be contemporary, thereby demanding an update. This, however, must not be misconstrued to be advocating the halt of the implementation, which is long overdue, but just a point to note. It is indubitable that both exercises can run simultaneously. Let me not also fail in opining that I strongly suspect the compromise of the outcome of the white paper panel as being heavily tainted.

This position of mine stemmed from the observation of the irrationality of most of the views expressed by the panel. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the white paper panel report be completely jettisoned for an independent panel of reviewers. Now, to the crux of our engagement, which is the exposition of some of the contents of the Oronsaye Report, with a view to galvanizing the government and the people to action. What is discussed here is a just paltry part of the recommendations of the committee, which is sweeping across all strata of the administrative structures of the federal government. Consider it a tip of the iceberg and simply a teaser to undertake the study of the report. As part of the recommendations of the committee, the Federal Character Commission is meant to be abolished via a constitution amendment.  The basis, I suspect, is to foster patriotism and nationalism, which is substantially lacking in the country. 

The committee also suggested the replacement of the Federal Civil Service Commission with the Federal Public Service Commission with minimum of seven commissioners and maximum of 12 commissioners for a renewable tenure of three years each, relative to the extant unwieldy composition. In addition, the centralization of all appointments, promotions and discipline towards guaranteeing quality, process and procedure was advocated.

For the National Population Commission, it was recommended that the number of the commissioners be pruned from the current 37 to seven with a part-time chairman and members representing the geo-political zones. The committee also believed that the abolition of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission as well as the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, with their functions transferred to the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is of utmost consideration.

For the Bureau of Public Procurement, it was recommended that the office be domiciled in the State House with the Infrastructure Concessionary and Regulatory Commission subsumed under it.  In terms of the anti-corruption bodies, it was recommended that the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission be merged while the Code of Conduct Tribunal be upgraded into a superior court of record with a mandate to handle all corruption cases. The Committee equally recommended the merger of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council with the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council and relocated to the Ministry of Trade and Industry . As part of the recommendations is the merger of the Border Communities Development Agency with the National Boundary Commission. The merger of National Emergency Management Agency with the National Refugees Commission to form National Emergency Management and Refugees Commission was also recommended.

The scrapping of National Poverty Eradication Programme while the National Directorate of Employment is recommended to be merged with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria to form Agency for Job Creation and Empowerment. It was further recommended that the Federal Road Safety Commission be disbanded and road safety functions reverted to the States, the relevant department of the Federal Ministry of Works and the Nigerian Police.  The Committee also recommended that the National Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS be abolished with its functions transferred to the Centre for Disease Control. Both the National Hajj Commission and the National Christians Commission were recommended to be scrapped with responsibility which is to be restricted to consular services transferred to the relevant department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  The scrapping of the National Economic Intelligence Committee was also recommended. In its further recommendation, the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and Nigerian meteorological Agency be merged to become Federal Civil Aviation Authority.

The Committee recommended that the board membership of the Bank of Agriculture be reduced to seven while the merger of Nigeria Communications Commission, Nigeria Broadcasting Commission and Nigeria Postal Service to become Communication Regulatory Authority of Nigeria was recommended.   National Bureau of Technical Examinations and National Examinations Council are recommended for scrapping, with functions transferred to West African Examinations Council. The National Commission for Nomadic Education and the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education are recommended for scrapping and functions transferred to the Universal Basic Education Board.  The Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council is to be disbanded and functions transferred to Policy, Planning, Management and Research Department of the Federal Ministry of Education. I have done this mild excursion of the Oronsaye Report to demonstrate the depth of the assignment carried out by the Committee, so as to trigger necessary action from the relevant quarters. It is my fervent view that the restructuring and rationalization of the agencies, commissions and parastatals cannot wait further if Nigeria is to be rescued and the drift towards collapse arrested. The action or inaction on this will determine how serious we are with the future of the country. I say no more on this issue!