CUTTING DOWN RECURRENT EXPENDITURE IN THE FACE OF GLOBAL OIL PRICE MELTDOWN

Posted on May 2, 2020

As oil price continue to fall in the International market, and since we have squandered the opportunity to diversify our economy from IBB’s $12.4billion oil windfall to GEJ’s oil at $140pb, we are now faced with the reality of cutting down our recurrent expenditure. Access bank has blown the whistle of massive retrenchment, sooner or later, other banks and companies will follow.

The Nigeria government has decided to swallow her pride and they have exhumed the 800 pages Oransaye report aimed at restructuring the civil service. In the bid to cut down recurrent expenditure, the FG plans to disband FRSC, Christian pilgrimage and Hajj Commission, and other five agencies. I must commend the FG government for this courageous step. Most of these agencies and parastatals just duplicate the functions of others. In saner climes, ICPC, FRSC and EFCC will be units under the Nigerian Police force. The Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC) will be a unit under the Nigerian Population Commission. There will be nothing like the Civil Defense Corps as the Police job functions should encapsulate them. There are so many other duplicate cases.

The Christian pilgrimage and Muslim Hajj commission are just a neo-colonized channels of transferring our common wealth to Israel and Saudi Arabia under the guise of religion. There is no place in the Bible where Christ instructed his followers to visit Israel in order to go to heaven. Even though Prophet Mohammed(sallallahu alayhi wa salaam) listed Hajj as one of the five pillars of Islam, he foresaw that there will be a group of black overzealous elements that will reside in the Niger area 1300 years after him, so he included a clause that only those who have the means should go (not to use States’ resources meant for infrastructural development). I commend this government for this move to stop government sponsored tourists.

The irony we face is that an average Nigerian feels that the function of government is to duplicate agencies in order to create jobs, forgetting that our country is not a socialist state. In as much as the primary duty of government is to ensure the welfare and security of the citizens as enshrined in section 14 sub 2b of the 1999 constitution, the current world economy is run by the private sector, especially small and medium scale enterprises. Under a private sector environment, the overweighed wage bill and the lackadaisical attitude of workers will be a thing of the past. The government on its part will create the enabling environment like electricity, roads, water etc and enact laws to regulate the working environment of the investors.

I just mentioned lackadaisical attitude of civil servants and our poor work ethics. If you work in Europe or US and perhaps other developed economies, you will know that work is work. A job that 20 civil servants is assigned to do in Nigeria, will be done by 4 persons in the West. The crowd you see at our secretariat, to me, are legions of potential farmers. Since most of them don’t have specific job function, they spend useful manpower time gossiping, playing Ludo, and discussing politics. Most of these idle employees of government are normally willing tools for protest, destabilization and riot against any government policy.

Now that the government has taken this giant stride to restructure the civil service in order to cut down the cost of running government, they should also send an executive bill to the National Assembly (amend the constitution) to restructure the National Assembly into a Unicameral legislature of no more than 109 legislators, and they should be paid on a part-time basis. Also, money giving to Governors as security votes should be published and audited. State and LGA Joint account should be abolished and LGAs should have full autonomy. INEC should conduct election for LGAs to ensure a better and transparent electioneering process at the local government level. This will save the third tier of government from collapse in this nose-diving economy.

Stephen Akuma, PhD
(2019 NCP Governorship candidate in Benue State)