FG Begins Scrapping, Merging of Agencies, Parastatals

Any moment from now, the Federal Government will begin the rationalisation of commissions, parastatals and agencies as recommended by the Steven Oronsaye led presidential committee.

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday rounded off deliberations on the draft white paper on the said report which is now before the secretariat for proper clean-up and action, as well as publication of the document.

Information Minister who gave the hint while briefing State House Correspondents after FEC meeting yesterday noted while some agencies will be scrapped, other agencies and departments with duplicating functions are to be either merged or be made to be more effective and result oriented.

Accordingly, he said FEC proceeded to constitute two separate committees chaired both by the Minister of National Planning, Dr. Usman Shamshudeen to look at the re-alignment of research agencies and institutes particularly those under the ministry of science and technology in order to make them more effective and profitable to the country.

Noting that there are about 22 research institutes under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Maku said, "There are so many research agencies under the ministry of science and technology and when u look at the agencies, some of the functions they perform could indeed be coordinated by universities, council believes that research must utilize our universities and also research must be linked to the private sector.

“So we agreed that there is a need to rationalize some of the agencies and also see which of those research agencies could be better placed under the auspices of existing Universities to perform better.

“We also believe that research that is disconnected from industry does not produce reports, so we believe research centres should also concentrate on new ideas, new technologies, new researches, the application of result of research also should be driven by industry and in order for this to come to fruition, council set up a council committee which is to be chaired by the minister of national planning to again look at the section of the report that has to do with research agencies, institutes and research centres spread across the country.

“The idea is to bring a report that will rationalise them and ensure that they become more effective and that they are driven by results and the results of the research they undertake are also utilized by industry or get commercialized for the benefit of the country".

Stressing that there too much river basins, Maku said records showed that there are about 11 River Basin Development Authorities, RBDAs, in the country including Upper Benue Basin, the Lake Chad Basin,  Benin-Owena Basin, Sokoto-Rima Basin, Sokoto; Hadejia-Jemaâare Basin, Kano;  Maiduguri; the , Yola; the Lower Benue Basin, Makurdi and the Cross River Basin, Calabar, Oshun-Ogun Basin, Abeokuta. Anambra-Imo Basin, Owerri; the Niger Basin, Ilorin; and Niger Delta Basin, Port Harcourt.

The minister said, "We need to align our water policies which are driven by the ministry of water resources with the new agricultural transformation agenda, there will be room in the future for greater participation of the private sector of the private sector in the utilization of the various river basins to drive mechanised agriculture. We want to ensure that there is private sector participation".

He said the committee will also look at the possibility of making the National Theatre, Lagos more commercial valuable to government, adding that government is expected to provide additional infrastructure at the edifice to make it a tourist’s attraction for the country.

Maku also said the committee will also look into changing the use of the nation's River Basin Authorities for commercial purposes particularly now that government is working towards commercial agriculture.