The Nigerian Senate has stated that 400 out of 541 federal government ministries, departments and agencies will be scrapped in 2023 following a recommendation by the presidential committee on agency rationalization.
This was made known by Senator Olamilekan Adeola, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance on Wednesday at a 2-day interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Finance and heads of MDAs.
The senator made the revelation while responding to a presentation made by Dr. Rufus Ebegba, the director general of the National Biosafety Management Agency, on the low revenue generation by the agency.
What the senator is saying
Ebegba had said his agency only generated N2 million against the N5 million yearly generated, he noted that out of the N2.5billion appropriated for the capital budget this year, only N1.3 billion was released.
In response, the senator said the committee had recommended that 106 MDAs be retained and that one of the basic factors for their retention was revenue generation.
The senator said it was unacceptable for an agency to be remitting N5 million yearly while it’s spending N500 million outside capital projects.
- Speaking further he said, “There is no way of stopping the implementation of the Orosanye panel because of the economic situation at hand in the country.
- “The government needs revenue for impactful budget implementation, particularly in the area of project execution, and can no longer afford to be dolling money to MDAs without corresponding returns on yearly basis.
- “We in the Senate are in support of the implementation of the Orosanye-led panel report to save the economy from self-inflicted bleeding.”
In his own presentation, the Managing Director of Sokoto Rima River Basin Development Authority, Engineer Buhari Bature Mohammed told the committee that out of the N7 billion collected from the government as funding for the year 2022, the agency only generated revenue of N7 million.
With Mr Mohammed’s presentation, the committee came to an agreement that the recommendation by the presidential committee on agency rationalisation should be applied to agencies with yearly low revenue generation.
Senator Adeola added by saying that in 2023, there will be zero budget allocation for any agency whose accounting officer refused to honour the ongoing interface on revenue generation.