- By Femi Alabi.
Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has said that the “Oransaye report” will not substantially reduce the enormous costs of governance in the country as it does not reflect the current situation in the public service.
Falana made this assertion in a statement on Tuesday describing the report as old fashioned.
He stated that.rather than downsizing the public service the Federal Government should ensure that the two houses of the National Assembly are merged while the numbers of Ministers, Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants and Special Assistants are significantly reduced.
He said, “The 800-page report of the Steve Oronsaye Panel recommended the reduction of statutory agencies from 263 to 161, scrapping 38 agencies, merging 52, and reverting 14 to departments in different ministries.
“No doubt, the implementation of some of the recommendations of the Panel will take appreciable time as the merger of certain bodies require constitutional amendments or repeal of a number of statutes.
“Since the Goodluck Jonathan administration produced a White Paper on the Steve Oronsaye Report in 2014, the Federal Government has created more ministries, departments and agencies.
“Whereas the Report recommended the reduction of 263 agencies to 151, the number of ministries, departments and agencies has increased to 1316. Even the current administration has increased the number of ministries and created new agencies. To that extent, the Steve Oronsaye Report is completely outdated.
“However, in implementing the Oronsaye Report the Federal Government should ensure that the crisis of insecurity is not compounded through the retrenchment of hundreds of thousands of workers.
Falana posited that should the report be implemented, government must ensure that workers are not sacked, saying that, instead of reducing workers, it should consider the option of merging the nation assembly and the reduction of government functionaries.