Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, said State Governors should prioritize rationalizing public office jobs as a means to cut costs of governance.
Mr. Rewane disclosed this on Channels Television on Sunday evening.
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We need to rationalize the staff of the public service – Bismarck Rewane, Economist on how government can cut the cost of governance.#Sundaypolitics. pic.twitter.com/YJcfh6TGWC
— Channels Television (@channelstv) November 15, 2020
“The Governments are starting to realize that profligacy is not a part of governance. The state governments have to run an economy, they are getting about N1.15 trillion from VAT, because 85% goes to the states. If looked individually, some states are doing well, in terms of use of thin resources, for example, Edo state,” he said.
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On cutting costs of governance, he said the states should rationalize overstaffing in the public service, which must be in tune with newer private investments – which would ensure a transfer of manpower to the new investments.
“Over staffing of the public service, you need to rationalize, if you are doing that, it must coincide with new investments, so that people who are getting rationalized are going into jobs created by the private sector.
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“It’s a thing that has to be done totally; we need private investments and policies that make sense. You can’t have inflation at 14-15%, and interest rates at 2%, nobody is going to invest in that environment – you need to bring those things back up.
“We need efficient fiscal system that complements private sector capital accumulation, to make sure that there is growth. As long as there is no growth and the population is growing at about 2%, there would be difficulties,” Rewane said.
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