The President Bola Tinubu administration has taken actionable steps in implementing the recommendations of the Stephen Oronsaye panel report made 12 years ago, which prescribed merging numerous ministries and parastatals with similar functions as a key tactic for reducing the cost of governance.
Some of the affected commissions include the Nigerian in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), which will be turned into an agency, the Public Complaints Commission (PCC), the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution (ICPR) and so on.
Special adviser to the President on policy coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, disclosed that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will absorb the Public Complaints Commission, Federal Radio Corporation, and Voice of Nigeria will be merged as an entity called Federal Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria.
She also said that the Niger Delta Power Holding Company will be relocated to the Ministry of Power and that SERVICOM will become a department under the Bureau for Public Service Reform (BPSR).
National Action Committee on Aids (NACA) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) will be merged as one, as recommended by the Oronsaye report.
Bayo Onanuga, a media aide to Mr Tinubu, corroborated Ms Usman’s announcement on his X account Monday evening shortly after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council as the nation battles a currency freefall, chronic debt and skyrocketing inflation.
“Twelve years after the Steve Oronsaye panel submitted its report on restructuring and rationalising federal government parastatals and agencies and a white paper issued two years after, President Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council today decided to implement the report,” Mr Onanuga wrote on X Monday evening.
Mr Tinubu has already constituted an eight-man committee and gave them an ultimatum of 12 weeks to come up with a plan that will ensure “the necessary legislative amendments and administrative restructuring needed to implement the reforms are effected”, according to the presidential aide.
The president, in recent weeks, has come under intense criticism, with even his supporters shifting positions to excoriate the leader, asserting his policies have yet to positively impact the economy.