Femi Gbajabiamila

Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, has explained why the federal government is yet to implement the Steve Oronsaye report.

Speaking to newsmen on Tuesday after a visit to the headquarters of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in Abuja, Gbajabiamila said the federal government is working out all necessary modalities to ensure a smooth implementation of the policy.

The Chief of Staff also shut down suggestions that the report has been thrown under the carpet or is being ignored.

He, however, added that there is no timeline yet for the implementation of the Oronsaye report.

Recall that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by President Bola Tinubu, in February, approved the full implementation of the Oronsaye report to merge some parastatals, agencies, and some commissions, while others will be subsumed, scrapped or relocated.

The government further set up an eight-man committee with the mandate to make recommendations on the mergers, scrapings, and relocations within 12 weeks.

However, six months later, the report has not been implemented.

The Oronsaye report is expected to reduce the cost of governance and streamline efficiency across the governance value chain.
Origin

In 2011, then President Goodluck Jonathan set up the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies with Steve Oronsaye as chairman.

On April 16, 2012, the committee submitted an 800-page report identifying, amongst several other things, overlapping agencies, causing wastage in expenditure.

The report said there were 541 parastatals, commissions and agencies and recommended that 263 of the agencies should be reduced to 161, 38 agencies abolished and 52 merged.