20 insights into Oronsaye Report as EFCC, FRSC, others set for merger

After years of clamour by Nigerians, President Bola Tinubu on Monday ordered the full implementation of the Oronsaye report.

 

By implementing the report, several agencies of the government would be merged, subsumed, scrapped, and relocated, reports The PUNCH. ⁣

 

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, revealed this to State House correspondents after Monday’s Federal Executive Council meeting at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja. ⁣

 

Here are things to know about the report

 

– President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, in 2012, set up the Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.

 

– The committee was headed by a retired federal civil servant and former Head of Service of the Federation, Stephen Oronsaye.

 

– After their painstaking assignment, the committee recommended the scrapping and merging of 220 out of the then existing 541 government agencies.

 

– If implemented, no fewer than 102 heads of agencies and parastatals will lose their jobs.

 

– The committee’s 800-page report noted that the government’s parastatals and agencies’ functions are overlapping.

 

– She said, “The committee observed that the legal framework/enabling Act of some of the PACs did not clearly define structure, management, and oversight. Most of the laws were used by agency, commission and board interchangeably. For instance, where the organisation is defined as a commission, the provisions of the law did not support the structure of a commission. In this regard, the committee recommended a change in status/name, and amendment of the Act/Law.

 

“The committee observed that most of the agencies created (especially under Education and Health) were Bills that emanated from the National Assembly. It is, therefore, important to engage and dialogue with the National Assembly to generate an understanding to streamline the creation of new PACs.

 

“It is noteworthy that some of the recommendations can be considered as low-hanging fruits that can be implemented immediately after approval of the white paper.”