President Muhammadu Buhari |
This
exercise that ought to follow the convening of the president’s cabinet late
last year has remained largely stalled, thanks to inertia in the offices that
should coordinate implementation of the presidential directive. This is
unacceptable and the exercise should be concluded soonest.
When the
president constituted his cabinet last year, he merged some ministries and
departments with a view to running a lean and hopefully, nimble, system. For
instance, the ministries of works, power, housing and urban development that
used to be three separate organisations, with numerous agencies attached to
each of them, became one ministry.
Similarly,
Aviation and Transport that used to be two separate ministries is now one
Ministry of Transportation. It is the same story for Ministries of Police
Affairs and Interior now under Interior Ministry. There are many such mergers
and the departments or agencies under them need to be re-aligned.
But despite
the effects of technology on governance and business practices, which should
ensure that decision-making is easier at streamlining the ministries and
agencies, the exercise is still taking so much time. This has come to light
amid lamentations within government circles that there is so much duplication
of functions and redundancies that government can no longer afford.
Given that
there is a focal point in the presidency to fast track this process, the Bureau
of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) to oversee reform of the public service,
headed by a director-general and located in the Office of the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation (OSGF), this should not be.
That no
progress has been made since is a disgrace to the civil service itself and a
disservice to Nigeria. Instead of working to make the system run, most of the
state actors have merely been lamenting about the implications of merging of
such ministries while working hard to stall it. But the specific objective of
the merger is to make agencies of government more functional to “be able to
deliver on the current administration’s promise to Nigerians.” And this
objective must be realised.
There have
been reports that lack of offices, duplication of functions and redundancies
have stalled the exercise. But these exactly are what the ad-hoc committee
should address expeditiously instead of waiting for miracles or another
directive from the president’s office.
So, the
government should overhaul the presidential bureaucracy which appears to be in
a state of stupor at the moment. Specifically, the Office of the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation (OSGF) should be alive to its responsibility
in this reform process. If the BPSR appears ill-equipped to coordinate this and
the Director-General cannot command the respect of the Permanent Secretaries in
the federal bureaucracy, the SGF should take over the process and stamp his
authority on it.
In this
confused presidential bureaucracy is also the Office of the Head of the Civil
Service, (OHCS) which should be active in the reform process. The Federal Civil
Service Commission is an integral part of the reform because it is the agency
that recruits, disciplines and promotes the civil servants in public service.
It is,
however, pertinent to ask if the report and white paper of the Stephen Oronsaye
Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal
Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies has been burnt. The white
paper on that report was issued by the last administration in March 2014. The
report itself was submitted in 2012.
The
Presidential Committee had recommended scrapping of 102 Federal Government
statutory agencies from the present 263, abolition of 38 agencies, merger of 52
and reversion of 14 to mere departments in some ministries. Specifically, the
Oronsaye Committee report also recommended the discontinuation of funding for
bodies and councils.
There was a
report early this year that government had adopted the report and white paper
for the purpose of restructuring. So, why is there so much delay over an
exercise that should make government bureaucracy more operationally efficient?
The
presidency and the governing party should recognise the value of an efficient
bureaucracy in a democracy and work hard to execute appropriate reforms. The
people of Nigeria deserve better from their civil service than what they get
now. (Guardian)
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