Dear Sir: I wish to use your widely read newspaper to air my view on the new national minimum wage recently signed into law and our over-bloated Public service.
Dear Sir: I wish to use your widely read newspaper to air my view on the new national minimum wage recently signed into law and our over-bloated Public service.
The NLC and the Nigerian workers, especially at the federal level, should note that if the Federal Government must actualise the N18,000 minimum wage, workers should also be prepared for rationalisation as the workforce of our Public service is currently over bloated.
Specifically, we have so many Commissions and Agencies at the federal level performing duplicating and conflicting functions. Some of them have leaders that are not visionary.
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It is interesting to observe that there are three main bodies all involved in monitoring of the nation’s budget:
The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) was set up in 2009 to implement the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) 2007, with special emphasis on monitoring of the federal government budget implementation in the areas of blockage of revenue leakages and capital budget implementation.
The office of the Auditor-General of the Federation audits all federal accounts, including capital projects.
There is also a full-fledged department in the Budget Office of the Federation whose mandate is solely budget implementation and monitoring.
Since 2007, we have been witnessing budget deficits of more than 3%, contrary to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) 2007. Yet FRC does not deem it fit to alert the relevant authorities on the consequences of this trend. Or is the Commission not aware that such high deficit is as a result of embezzlement and leakages in our revenue generation and management procedure?
The Commission is also over-staffed with alot of staff not suitable for its vision. Such staff came in form of transfer of service from core civil service as a result of godfarherism.
Why should all the 3 (three) afore-mentioned bodies be performing the same functions, yet we continue to witness sharp practices in budget implementation and abandonment of capital projects?
Is it not possible to, for instance, to fuse these three bodies into one to save public fund, or is it a case of providing jobs for the citizens at all cost?
The cases of mandates and functions can be found among so many other Agencies and Commissions, especially at the federal level.
My consolation, however, is that the Dr.(Mrs) Okonjo Iweala-led Committee has commenced work in earnest. With the pedigree of the Committee members, it is the expection of the general public that a thorough job will be carried out in right-sizing the Public Service.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs Jokke Amusan
42/44, Taiwo Street
Off Broad Street
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