Imperative of structural reduction in cost of governance

 

On January 9, 2024, President Bola Tinubu announced the reduction of his cost of travel by 60 per cent. The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, revealed this while briefing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Ngelale said the directive applied to the offices of the President, Vice President, First Lady, wife of the Vice President and all ministries, departments and agencies.

Ngelale was quoted as saying, “President Bola Tinubu has approved that anywhere he travels within this country he will no longer accept or allow huge security delegations to be following him from Abuja, which attracts massive bills with respect to estacode and duty allowances from now on.  He has approved a massive cost-cutting exercise that will cut across the entire Federal Government of Nigeria and the Offices of the President himself, the Vice President and the Office of the First Lady. It will be conducted in the following fashion. On international trips, the President has directed that no more than 20 individuals be allowed to travel with him. That number will be cut down to five in the case of the First Lady. Additionally, the number in the entourage on official international trips for the Vice President will be cut to five. The number that will be placed as a limit on the wife of the Vice President is also five.”

I have joined millions of Nigerians in lauding the president on this initiative. However, successive administrations have done similar things with little or no effect on the economy. There is no gainsaying that there is a need to cut down travel cost but that is not far-reaching. Before I propose my recommendations, there is a need to discuss further the profligate nature of Nigeria’s political leadership.

The PUNCH of January 15, 2024, reported that Tinubu has spent not less than N3.4bn on local and foreign travel within six months of assuming office. The figure is 36 per cent more than the N2.49bn earmarked for the President’s travel expenditure in the 2023 budget. Though Tinubu inherited the budget halfway, he spent more than what was apportioned for the whole year between June and December 2023. The President also approved the sum of N3bn for the purchase of three bulletproof Mercedes Benz S-class 580 and the supply of other vehicles to the State House.

This profligacy is not limited to the Federal Government. Again. The PUNCH of yesterday, January 16, reported that, “Despite spending at least N21.04bn on foreign trips in the last three years, 14 state governments have failed to attract any form of foreign investments into their domains. The states in question are Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara. Between 2021 and the third quarter of 2023, these states failed to attract any of the $14.85bn that foreign investors channelled into Nigeria.”

The report went further that, “Between 2021 and 2023, Bauchi spent N3.81bn on foreign trips without having anything to show for it. Bayelsa spent N1.99bn, Benue spent N1.33bn, Borno spent N1.73bn, Cross River spent N663.16m, Ebonyi spent N1.01bn, Edo spent N1.77bn, Gombe spent N32.09m, Imo spent N541.23m, Jigawa spent N1.10bn, Nasarawa spent N541.26m, Taraba spent N2.52bn, Yobe spent N1.24bn, and Zamfara spent N2.77bn. The figures for foreign trips were extracted from state budget performance reports sourced from Open Nigerian States.”

The PUNCH editorial of January 15 said inter alia that, “The Tinubu administration has not inspired confidence with its large cabinet, ostentatious convoys, and sickening luxury at public expense amid an inflation rate of 28.20 per cent, job losses and factory closures. There is also the ruinous forex crisis in which the currency is exchanging for over N1,000 to $1. Multidimensional poverty saw about 10 million more Nigerians sliding into penury since May 2023’s petrol subsidy removal, according to World Bank estimates.” The editorial therefore proposed among other things that, “The President should reduce the Presidential Air Fleet and sell the N5 billion-yacht embedded in the 2023 supplementary budget. The gains from the cost-cutting should be directed to the provision of social and health services and infrastructure.”

I fully endorse the recommendation of this newspaper. However, for there to be a significant reduction in the cost of governance, a number of administrative cum legal steps need to take place. First is the imperative of structural reforms, including altering the constitution to reduce the number of ministers, federal and state lawmakers. For instance, the President relied on the second paragraph of Section 147 (3) of the 1999 Constitution to appoint 48 ministers. This section needs to be amended to peg the number of ministers to a maximum of 18 (three ministers to represent each of the six geo-political zones). The constitution should also be altered to either scrap the Senate as Senegal did in 2012 and Mauritania did in 2017, or reduce the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly members by one-third as done in Italy. Recall that in October 2019, Italy’s parliament voted to cut the number of representatives in both houses by more than a third. The lower house approved a law to reduce members of parliament from 630 to 400 and senators from 315 to 200.

If these three aforementioned countries can do what they did, nothing prevents Nigeria, a heavily indebted country, from structurally cutting down the cost of governance. I also suggest another look at the Steve Oronsaye report which former President Muhammadu Buhari promised to implement but failed to do so. Recall that in 2011, the then President Goodluck Jonathan set up the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, under the Chairmanship of former Head of Service, Mr Steve Oronsaye. It came up with far-reaching recommendations aimed at reducing the cost of governance. Despite the white paper being out, the immediate past administration did not implement the report. Tinubu should be able to take up the gauntlet and implement this report. Nigeria, in my estimation, does not need over 1,000 ministries, departments and agencies, many of whom have duplicate mandates.

There is also the need to block all revenue leakages, particularly from the government-owned enterprises that collect revenue for the Federal Government. It is a notorious fact that some of them under-declare and do not remit the actual amount that they should pay into the federation account. Similarly, the issue of oil theft and illegal mining of Nigeria’s solid minerals needs to be tackled headlong. Corrupt practices in ministries, departments and agencies need to be exterminated. That is why the alleged embezzlement of public funds in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation needs to be thoroughly investigated as ordered by the President and all those found culpable prosecuted in a court of law. Lastly, the aforementioned cost-saving measures should cut across the three tiers and three arms of the government. Nigerians deserve good governance and a better life!