The Federal Government will not retrench workers in the course of the implementation of the 12- year-old Steve Oronsaye report.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, made this known in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said this during his remarks at the Ministerial Press Briefing.
”The essence of the implementation of the Oronsaye reports is not to retrench workers, but to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of the agencies, and to also reduce cost.
“There are some aspects of the report that have been reviewed; but those aspects that have to do with merging, scrapping and subsuming have already been undertaken.
“Now, the whole idea is that government wants to reduce cost and improve service delivery.
“That does not necessarily mean that government is out to retrench workers and throw people into the labor market. That is not the original intention of government.
“The intention is that efficiency has to be brought in, because, some of these agencies are actually having an overlap in their operations. We are doing this for people to have the benefit of democracy,” Idris said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Federal Executive on Monday approved the Implementation of the recommendations of the Oronsaye panel on the restructuring and rationalisation of Federal Government’s agencies and commissions.
The government said the implementation of the policy would involve the merging, subsuming and scrapping of agencies with similar functions.
On April 16, 2012, the committee submitted an 800-page report identifying, amongst several other things, overlapping agencies, causing wastage in expenditure.
NAN reports that the committee said there are 541 parastatals, commissions and agencies and recommended that 263 of the agencies should be reduced to 161, 38 agencies abolished and 52 merged.
There were some motions without movement on the report during ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years in office but the new government said implementing the report aligned with its cost-cutting measures.
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Some of the key recommendations for implementation are National Salaries, Income and wages Commission to be subsumed under Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission. The National Assembly will need to amend the constitution as RMAFC was established by the constitution.
- Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission to be merged with Bureau of Public Enterprise and be rechristened as `Public Enterprises and Infrastructural Concession Commission.
- National Human Rights Commission to swallow Public Complaints Commission
4. Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate(PTAD) to be scrapped and functions to be taken over by Federal Ministry of Finance. - NEMA and National Commission for Refugees to be fused to become National Emergency and Refugee Management Commission.
- Border Communities Development Agency to become a department under National Boundary Commission.
- NACA and NCDC to be merged.
- SERVICOM to become a department under the Bureau for Public Service Reform(BPSR).
- NALDA to return to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
- Federal Ministry of Science to supervise a new agency that combines NCAM, NASENI and PRODA.
- National Commission for Museums and Monuments and National Gallery of Arts to become one entity that will be known as National Commission for Museums, Monuments and Gallery of Arts.
- National Theatre to be merged with National Troupe.
- Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa and Directorate of Technical Aid Corp to be merged under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Nigerians in Diaspora Commission to become an agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Federal Radio Corporation and Voice of Nigeria to be one entity to be known as Federal Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria.
- National Biotechnology Development Agency(NABDA) and National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology to be emerged into an agency to be known as National Biotechnology Research and Development Agency(NBRDA).
- National Institute for Leather Science Technology and National Institute for Chemical Technology to become one agency.
- Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development to become one agency.
- The National Metallurgical Development Centre and National Metallurgical Training Institute will be merged.
- National Institute for Trypanosomiasis to be subsumed under Institute of Veterinary Research in Vom, Jos.
- The Niger Delta Power Holding Company to be relocated to the Ministry of Power.
- The National Agricultural Land Development Agency to be relocated to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
- The National Blood Service Commission to be converted into an agency and relocated to the Ministry of Health.
