This white paper wasted our time

The Presidential Committee on the Restructuring and Rationalisation of Public Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies was set up three years ago under the leadership of Mr. Steve Oronsaye, a former Head of the Federal Civil Service. It was touted at the time as a major aspect of President Goodluck Jonathan’s much-hyped Transformation Agenda. This effort was […]

The Presidential Committee on the Restructuring and Rationalisation of Public Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies was set up three years ago under the leadership of Mr. Steve Oronsaye, a former Head of the Federal Civil Service. It was touted at the time as a major aspect of President Goodluck Jonathan’s much-hyped Transformation Agenda. This effort was widely welcomed because this country’s public service clearly needs a transformation, not the least to whittle down its colossal size, improve its efficiency and also reduce its propensity to gulp 70% of the Federal budget for its salaries and maintenance costs.
The Oronsaye Committee’s report, submitted to the president in 2012, contained many far-reaching recommendations.  Among others, it recommended the scrapping of 102 federal government statutory agencies out of the present 263. It recommended the abolition of 38 agencies and the merger of 52 others, while it also recommended that 14 agencies should revert to their former status as departments within ministries. Oronsaye also recommended that government should stop funding professional bodies and councils.
In the white paper it released two weeks ago, the Federal Government rejected most of these recommendations. It rejected the recommendation to merge the three anti-corruption agencies Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB. It rejected the recommendation to rename the Code of Conduct Bureau Tribunal to Anti-crime Tribunal. It rejected the recommendation to scrap the National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). It also rejected the recommendation to merge the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON). Government also rejected the recommendation to subsume the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission under the Bureau of Public Enterprises [BPE]. Yet another recommendation to change the Federal Civil Service Commission’s name to Federal Public Service Commission was rejected.
The white paper however accepted the recommendation to scrap the Fiscal Responsibilities Commission (FSC). Even before the law setting it up is repealed, government said FRC’s duties will be performed by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). It also accepted to scrap the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), an agency that has clearly outlived its usefulness and whose poverty reduction functions are already performed by several other agencies.
The most important recommendation accepted by government was the merger of three key agencies in the aviation sector. These are the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NMA) and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA). The three agencies are to merge into a new agency to be called Federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA). Their respective enabling laws would be amended soon to reflect the merger, the white paper stated. Government however rejected the recommendation to privatise the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN.
Reactions from professionals and important stakeholders in all sectors in the wake of the white paper indicates that while the government rejected the most logical mergers, it agreed to carry out the least logical of the mergers. The biggest illogic so far pointed out by critics of this decision is that by merging the three aviation bodies into one, government has merged  a regulatory body [NCAA] with two service providers [NAMA and NIMET]. As one expert said, it would have been more logical to merge NAMA with NIMET and FAAN since all three are service providers while NCAA should stand alone as the regulator of these three as well as the entire aviation industry. This is a big goof indeed and industry experts even warn that Nigeria could face sanctions from the International Civil Aviation Organisations (ICAO), the umbrella world body for aviation safety and standards. Incidentally, the President of ICAO’s council, Dr. Olumuyiwa Babatunde Aliu, is a Nigerian.
All told, the Federal Government has proved that it lacks the nerve and political will to carry out a major restructuring of the public service. Maybe this stance is not totally unexpected with elections looming and with the ruling party facing perhaps its biggest challenge at the polls since 1999. In which case the Federal Government should have suspended action on the report until after the election. With this white paper that rejected most of Oronsaye’s courageous and carefully thought out recommendations, it has wasted his time and our own too.