Twelve Highlights of the Stephen Oronsaye Report

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Yesterday, the federal government announced that it was set to begin the implementation of the Stephen Oronsaye report,  about 12 years after it was first put together.

 Expected to help in cutting the cost of governance, here are 12 highlights of the original version of the much talked about document.

•Scrapping and merging of 220 out of the existing 541 government agencies at the time the report was prepared.

•Management audit of 89 agencies, capturing biometric features of staff as well as the discontinuation of government funding for professional bodies/councils.

•Merging of Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) with Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to be called Public Enterprises and Infrastructural Concession Commission (PEICC).

•Fusing of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and National Commission for Refugees (NCF)  to be called the National Emergency and Refugee Management Commission (NERMC).

•Merging of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), the Voice of Nigeria (VON)  under one management called the Federal Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria (FBCN).

•Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) to become an agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

•Among the 38 federal agencies to be abolished, also include: Public Complaints Commission, National Poverty Eradication Programme, Utilities Charges Commission, National Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS, National Intelligence Committee etc.

•In addition, 14 agencies are to be fused into ministries where they were created from, while the Debt Management Office (DMO) is to return to the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Public Health Department is expected to go back to the Federal Ministry of Health

•The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) will become a department in the Nigeria Police Force, also, the Universal Basic Education Commission, Nomadic Education Commission, and National Mass Literacy Commission, the report said, are performing overlapping functions and should be brought under one body.

•If the 800-page document is implemented in its original form, at least 102 heads of agencies and parastatals are expected to lose their jobs.

•At the time, Oronsaye said that that if the committee’s recommendation was implemented, the government would save over N862 billion between 2012 and 2015.

              While N124.8 billion would be reduced from agencies proposed for abolition, at the time,  about N100.6 billion was to 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.

•Also, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) are expected to be merged if the report is implemented in its original form.