Public service hopelessly over staffed – Jibril Aminu

Aminu, a delegate to the conference and former minister of petroleum and education, said public service is a disgrace to the country while commenting on the report of the committee on public finance and revenue at the plenary Tuesday.“With due respect to the unions, public service is hopelessly over staffed. There is no doubt about […]

Aminu, a delegate to the conference and former minister of petroleum and education, said public service is a disgrace to the country while commenting on the report of the committee on public finance and revenue at the plenary Tuesday.
“With due respect to the unions, public service is hopelessly over staffed. There is no doubt about it. It is in fact a disgrace to Nigeria.
“People think the money is their own. Especially the state governors and the Niger Delta people who think the oil is their own simply because it’s found in their area. It belongs to all of us,” he said.
He said the over bloated public service is responsible for the very high recurrent expenditure with a very lean capital vote in the country’s budget.
He said “unless we cut down the payroll which is over bloated with needless and ghost workers, the recurrent expenditure can’t go down and capital expenditure can’t go up.”
He said corruption and nepotism have permeated the public service “to the extent that governors appoint their close friends as accountant generals. Some have even gone to the extent of appointing their family members as accountant generals. It’s that bad.”
He said as a result of this, “governors have unlimited access to public funds. They get the money whenever travelling in the name of security votes.”