The Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal GovernmentParastatals, Commissions and Agencies has recommended the scrapping Nigeria’s two anti corruption agencies.
The committee believes that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, along with the Federal Roads Safety Commission, FRSC, should be dismantled because they all perform the duties of the Nigeria Police Force and a department in the ministry of works.
The committee, chaired by Stephen Oronsaye, former head of service of the federation, also asked government to reduce the number of its ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, from 541 including, 263 statutory agencies, to 163.
It made these recommendations yesterday at the presentation of its report to the president at the Presidential Villa, Aso Rock, Abuja.
The committee argued that many MDAs have been discovered to have overlapping functions which allowed for duplication of functions thereby encouraging corruption and indolence in government.
Citing some agencies with outright overlapping roles, the committee recommended that the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Independent Corrupt Practice Commission, ICPC should be scrapped.
The committee in its report drew attention to the fact that many committees had been set up in the past with their recommendations never implemented.
It advised government to emulate more successful nations which had faced realities of the global financial trends and had pruned government to sizeable measure with better results.
While presenting the report to the president, Oronsaye observed that “12 years after the White Paper on the Ahmed Joda Panel Report on the Review, Harmonization and Rationalization of Federal Government Parastatals, Institutions and Agencies, in 2000, some parastatals and agencies, which government had decided should either be scrapped, commercialized, privatized or self-funding, are still receiving full government funding, which runs into billions of Naira.”
He drew the attention of government to indiscriminate setting up of agencies and parastatals by successive governments mostly to satisfy political and selfish needs.
The committee also noted that the Nigerian Communications Satellite, NigComSat Limited, which was established as the commercial arm of the Nigerian Space Research Development Agency,NASRDA, has now expanded its scope and is in rivalry with its parent body.
Oronsaye said the committee also observed that other agencies are playing the same roles citing the duplication of the statutory functions of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, and the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, in the area of frequency allocation.
It observed that nations with very effective communications delivery maintain only one agency for that purpose.
Concerning education, Oronsaye stated “If the country is to stem the present trend of mass failure in certificate examinations at the secondary school level as well as the poor quality of graduates being spewed from the nation’s tertiary institutions, there is indeed an urgent need to address the critical factors that are exacerbating the current challenges facing the Education Sector.”
The committee noted that three different agencies – the Universal Basic Education Commission,UBEC, the Nomadic Education Commission, NEC and the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, NCMLA - all perform the same functions.
It recommended that UBEC should take over the functions of the other two agencies.
The committee also lamented that none of the Nigerian universities was among the first 1000 in the world.
It recommended that government should put in place a mechanism to transform the six first generation universities at Ibadan, Zaria, Lagos, Nsukka, Ife and Benin into model institutions with each having a niche or area of comparative advantage.
The committee also expressed concern on the cost of governance in Nigeria, observing that it ranks among the highest in the world.
Noting that it would take government strong political and administrative will to achieve these, the committee urged the Executive to collaborate with other arms of government especially the Legislature to achieve a slimmer and more cost-effective means of running government.
“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 rationalizing the agencies under them since the three arms make up the government.” Oronsaye said.
The committee thereby proposed ways of immediately reducing the cost of governance which include that government reduce the number and size of the governing boards of parastatals.
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