The lawmakers said the recommendations in the Oronsaye Report may not reflect the present realities in the country and therefore may not address the cost of governance as envisaged some years back.
Nigerian lawmakers are raising concerns over the planned implementation of the Oronsaye Report by President Bola Tinubu.
The House of Representatives, on Thursday, following a joint motion by Kama Nkemkanma (APC, Ebonyi), Olumide Osoba (APC, Ogun), and Jonathan Gaza (SDP, Nasarawa), said there must be a thorough review of the report to connect it to the present realities.
Background
President Tinubu on Monday announced the plan to implement the Oronsaye Report and subsequently set up an eight-member committee.
The committee comprises the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; Head of the Civil Service, Folashade Yemi-Esan; Messrs Bagudu and Fagbemi, Director-General of Bureau of Public Service Reform, Dasuki Arabi; Special Adviser to Hadiza Bala-Usman, and Special Assistants to the president on National Assembly.
It has a 12-week deadline to ensure necessary legislative amendments and administrative restructuring are efficiently implemented.
In 2011, former President Goodluck Jonathan set up the presidential committee on the reformation of government agencies chaired by Steven Oronsaye, a former head of service.
At the inauguration of the Oronsaye Committee, its terms of reference included, among others, examining the enabling Acts and mandates of all the federal agencies, parastatals, and commissions to determine areas of overlap or duplication of functions.
The committee, in its report, recommended that of the 541 Statutory and Non-Statutory Federal Government Parastatals, Agencies, and Commissions, 263 statutory agencies should be reduced to 161, 38 agencies should be abolished, 52 agencies should be merged, and 14 should revert to departments in ministries.
A white paper committee, headed by the then Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, reviewed the report and rejected most of its recommendations when it submitted its report in 2014.
However, even the accepted recommendations were not implemented until the Jonathan administration left office in 2015.
In 2021, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated two committees.
One, headed by a former Head of Service, Bukar Aji, was mandated to review the Oronsaye Report and the government white paper. The other committee, chaired by Ama Pepple, was mandated to review MDAs created between 2014 and 2022.
The then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, in July 2022 set up another white paper committee, headed by Ebele Okeke, to review the report of Pepple committee. But the government of Mr Buhari failed to implement the report.
The motion
Moving the motion on behalf of the co-sponsors, Mr Nkemkanma said the report may be out of tune with realities.
He said the recommendations in the report may not reflect the present realities in the country, hence, may not address the cost of governance as envisaged some years back.
The lawmaker said the report “may be described as outdated, especially because of how dynamic society, the economy, polity, technology, and all facets of our national life have been.”
He added that “contrary to the assumption that the full implementation of the report would reduce the cost of governance, with the current realities, the full implementation of the report will not substantially reduce the cost of governance as it does not reflect the current situation in the Public Service of the Federation.”
He further stated that they were deeply worried that the full implementation of 2012 Oronsaye report in 2024 will certainly throw up unintended consequences, implications, and outcomes.
Consequently, the House urged Mr Tinubu to comprehensively review the 2012 Orosanye Report, the Goni Aji Report which reviewed the report, the White Paper released by the Jonathan administration, the Ama Pepple White Paper, and the Ebele Okeke White Paper in line with current realities.
The motion was not debated, and when the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen, put it to a voice vote, it was unanimously adopted.