Thirteen months after President Bola Tinubu promised to implement the Steve Oronsaye Report, designed to streamline Nigeria’s governance structure and reduce fiscal waste, the document remains unheeded. Despite the promise of reform, public spending has continued to increase, with government bureaucracy and redundancies contributing to growing economic concerns. Experts argue that now is the critical time for structural changes to avert further financial strain, especially with a large portion of Nigeria’s population in multidimensional poverty.
The Oronsaye Report, first submitted in 2012, identified inefficiencies in federal ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) and recommended a reduction in their number. President Tinubu, in February 2024, announced the decision to implement the report’s recommendations, including merging and scrapping several agencies to create a leaner government. However, over a decade later, no significant progress has been made, and rather than downsizing, the government has expanded, with the number of ministers reaching an all-time high and new agencies being established.
The report had proposed merging agencies like the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and forming an Anti-Corruption Commission by combining the Code of Conduct Bureau, EFCC, and ICPC. Additionally, it called for the scrapping of 38 agencies and the transformation of others into departments within ministries. However, these recommendations have not been acted upon, and the size of the government has only grown, exacerbating inefficiencies.
In the meantime, Nigeria’s budget continues to be riddled with misallocations, including the assignment of projects outside the core mandates of certain agencies. A report by BudgIT Nigeria revealed that over 2,500 projects, valued at ₦624 billion, were misallocated in the 2024 federal budget. This includes projects like procuring vehicles for traditional rulers and constructing roads that fall outside agencies’ responsibilities. These budgetary anomalies highlight the deep-rooted inefficiencies in governance, further straining the nation’s finances.
Source: thesun