The House of Representatives, on Thursday, said the Stephen Oronsaye Report on civil service reform had become outdated and needed to be updated before implementation.
Senator Shehu Sani spoke in a similar vein.
The House, at plenary, told Tinubu to comprehensively review the 2012 Oronsaye report and all other related reports and white papers before any implementation.
Specifically, the green chamber urged the president to comprehensively review the Goni Aji Report, which reviewed Oronsaye Report, the White Paper released by the President Jonathan administration, the Ama Pepple White Paper, and the Ebele Okeke White Paper, in line with current realities.
The resolution of the House was sequel to adoption of a motion of urgent national importance jointly moved by Hon. Kama Nkemkanma, Hon. Olumide Osoba, and Hon. Jonathan Gbefwi.
Moving the motion, Nkemkanma recalled that in 2012, the Jonathan administration set up the Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, headed by Stephen Oronsaye, a retired federal civil servant and former Head of Service of the Federation.
He said the Oronsaye committee, after their painstaking assignment, recommended the scrapping and merging of 220 out of the then existing 541 government agencies.
The lawmaker noted that the committee’s 800-page report noted that the government’s parastatals and agencies’ functions were overlapping and, therefore, recommended the reduction of statutory agencies from 263 to 16.
It also suggested the abolition of 38 agencies, the merger of 52 and the reversion of 14 to departments in ministries and the management audit of 89 agencies, capturing biometric features of staff as well as the discontinuation of government funding of professional bodies/councils.
Nkemkanma stressed that the Oronsaye Report revealed then that if the committee’s recommendation was implemented, the government would be saving over N862 billion between 2012 and 2015 with a breakdown, which showed that about N124.8 billion would be reduced from agencies proposed for abolition.
The report, he said, also noted that about N100.6 billion would be saved from agencies proposed for mergers; about N6.6 billion from professional bodies; N489.9 billion from universities; N50.9 billion from polytechnics; N32.3 billion from Colleges of Education and N616 million from boards of federal medical centres.
He said after the committee’s report, the white paper committee set up by Jonathan’s administration rejected most of the recommendations, while those accepted were not implemented.
The lawmaker further recalled that the in November 2021, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration inaugurated two committees: one of the committees chaired by Goni Aji, a retired Head of Civil Service of the Federation was to review the Oronsaye report and the second committee, chaired by Ama Pepple, also a retired Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, was constituted to review agencies created between 2014 and 2021.
He pointed out that upon submission of their reports, the Buhari government in July 2022 set up another committee chaired by Ebele Okeke, a former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to produce a white paper on the reports.
Nkemkanma expressed worry about the full implementation of a report 12 years after it was first made, which ordinarily might be described as outdated, especially because of how dynamic the society, economy, polity, technology and all facets of national life has been.
He expressed concern that contrary to the assumption that the full implementation of the report would reduce cost of governance, with the current realities, the full implementation of the report would not substantially reduce the cost of governance as it did not reflect the current situation in the Public Service of the Federation.
Nkemkanma said he was, “Deeply worried that the full implementation of 2012 Oronsaye report in 2024 will certainly throw up unintended consequences, implications and outcomes.”
He said the House was committed to supporting all positive actions and policies of the Tinubu administration, with minimum unintended consequences, impacts, implications and outcomes.
He asked the House to “Urge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to comprehensively review the 2012 Oronsaye Report, the Goni Aji Report which reviewed Oronsaye Report, the White Paper released by the President Jonathan administration, the Ama Pepple White Paper and the Ebele Okeke White Paper in line with current realities, while considering implementable alternatives that are in tune with current realities, and which at the same time would have minimum unintended consequences, impacts, implications and outcomes.”
The House also urged the executive arm of government to develop and implement policies that would reposition the agricultural sector, the solid mineral sector and the informal sectors to serve as alternatives to those that might be laid off in the process of implementing the Oronsaye report, while at the same time spurring economic growth.
On his part, Sani, who spoke during an interview on national television in Abuja, maintained that it would not be good to implement a report that was established in 2012, because many things in the report might have become obsolete by 2024, 12 years after it was submitted.
The Oronsaye Report aimed to streamline governance, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency.
But Sani said the report had become obsolete due to the proliferation of new agencies and commissions since its inception.
He said legislators’ performance was often measured by the number of bills they sponsored or the creation of federal agencies and commissions resulting from their initiatives, thereby leading to a high number of federal agencies and commissions in the country.
Sani stated that the approach did not align with the country’s economic realities.
He stated, “Most of these commissions were created by the National Assembly. When you are elected into office as a senator or as a member of the House of Representatives, one of the factors that they use to gauge your performance or stewardship in office is the number of bills you are able to sponsor, or the number of federal agencies that came out of your bills.
“And as such, you see every year, legislators come out with all sorts of ideas about commissions and agencies and boards and bureaus. But we don’t take cognizance of the fact that we are a poor country. A nation of 224 million people with such little resources.
“Some of the agencies that we created in this country are so irrelevant and useless. And it’s time that we implemented this report.
“But Oronsaye Report could have been updated. The president could have invited Oronsaye and his committee and said, ‘Update your report based on the new commissions and agencies that have been created after your report.’ Because as it is now, the report is outdated.
“If you live in Abuja today, there’s hardly any street you will move without seeing an agency you never knew before. It’s either one commission on this or an agency on that.
“Now, look at the number of the agencies that came after Oronsaye Report. So if you look at what’s being done now, it’s simply, ‘Let’s implement this without thinking that it has gone out of date.’
“So, the best thing now is to invite Oronsaye and ask him to update his report and then the government can implement it.”
Chuks Okocha, Adedayo Akinwale and Dike Onwuamaeze
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