EXCLUSIVE: List of Federal Agencies to be Scrapped/Merged - The Nation

Oronsaye

Investigations by The Nation unveil the full list of the 38 agencies recommended for scrapping by the Steven Oronsaye Report and the 52 to be merged, including hitherto unknown details, reports YUSUF ALLI.

 The Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and  Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, led by ex-Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Oronsaye, has recommended the  elevation of the Code of Conduct Tribunal to Anti-Corruption Tribunal to try all graft cases. 

With this development, regular courts (where more than 55 cases are stalled) will no longer try corruption-related matters. 

Also, the commission is seeking compulsory and free education from primary school to Junior Secondary School for all school-age children in the country. 

But the full list of agencies recommended for abolition also emerged yesterday in Abuja . 

Top on the list are the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), Ajaokuta Steel Company and National Iron Ore Mining Company (NIOMCO). 

These highlights are contained in a 110-page Executive Summary submitted to the Office of the Vice-President, which was exclusively obtained by The Nation. 

The document reads: “The Code of Conduct Tribunal should be renamed Anti-Corruption Tribunal and upgraded to the status of a Court of Superior Records with the responsibility for handling only corruption cases from the proposed merger of EFCC, ICPC and the Code of Conduct Bureau. 

“Extant anti-corruption laws should be repealed, while a new one is enacted to accommodate the consolidation of EFCC, ICPC and the Code of Conduct Bureau. 

“The establishment of strong departments among others, in the proposed consolidated structure is desirable as they would handle the following areas: (i) Prosecution; (ii) Investigation (iii) Prevention (Advocacy); and (iv) Asset declaration/ forfeiture. 

“The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) should be made autonomous.” 

“Critical stakeholders, particularly the National Council on Education, NCE should make tangible efforts to revamp the falling standard of Education in Nigeria, including the establishment of appropriate structures for the management of quality”

“As education is on the concurrent list, state Governors should be engaged via the National Economic Council of State to drive the process and restore the standard of primary and secondary school Education 

“They should also enhance the quality of teachers and infrastructure of primary schools.

“The first nine years of a child’s education should be free and fully funded by the Government. 

“Teaching should be professionalised, particularly at the primary education level. 

“Fresh graduates of Colleges of Education should mandatorily undergo a defined period of internship and be recertified at periodic intervals of three years thereafter. 

“All practising teachers in primary and secondary schools and equivalent should undergo in service training to enable them to obtain licenses to continue to practice. 

“Teachers in privately owned primary and secondary schools should pass a qualifying examination before they are recertified to practice. 

“Funds appropriated for the management and development of schools should be allocated directly to respective schools, rather than being warehoused at the Federal Ministry of Education, UBEC and SUBEB. 

“There is need for the restoration of a strong, aggressive, focused and professionalised Inspectorate Division in the Federal Ministry of Education to facilitate the improvement and maintenance of standards in service delivery. 

“For the recommendations to have a meaningful impact, the Education sector requires decisive and courageous leadership at every level of the Educational chain for the surgical transformation of the sector. 

“The NUC-the apex body in the tertiary Education sub-sector should subsume NBTE and NCCE to form a new agency known as the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC).” 

The report dwelt extensively on some of the agencies to be abolished or merged. 

Although Oronsaye Panel had  recommended the abolition of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and reversal of 14 to departments in ministries, a comprehensive list of those to be abolished was not made known to the public because a few ones mentioned (like EFCC, ICPC) generated controversy. 

Some of those on the list are:  the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), National Salaries and Wages Commission; Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission; Infrastructure Concessionary and Regulatory Commission; EFCC, ICPC, Code of Conduct Bureau; Fiscal Responsibility Commission; National Board for Technical Education; National Commission for Colleges of Education; Federal Character Commission; Gurara Water Management Authority (GWMA); Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management Commission (NIWRMC); National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA); Commercial Law Department; and  Centre for Automotive Design and Development (CADD). 

Others are: Standards Organisation of Nigeria; Consumer Protection Council (CPC); National Orientation Agency (NOA); National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO); Nigerian Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Studies (NIHOTOUR); National Troupe and the National Theatre; National Gallery of Arts; Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN); Nigeria Leather Science Technology; National Research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT); National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA); Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI); FIIRO, NASENI, NCAM; National Rural Electrification Agency (NREA); National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN). 

Also affected are the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA); Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR);  National Economic Recovery Fund (NERFUND);  National Oil  Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA);  Nigerian Institute for Education Planners and Administrators; National Metallurgical Development Centre Jos, National Metallurgical Training Institute Onitsha, Nigerian Institute of Mining and Geosciences (NIMG) Jos; Nigerian Geological Survey; National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency (NSRMEA); National Productivity Centre; Nigerian Copyright Commission; NTA, FRCN, Voice of Nigeria; National Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS, Roll-Back Malaria, Epidemiology and Surveillance, Occupational and Environmental Health, Health Emergency Preparedness and Response 

The report added: “PTDF should be subsumed under the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to ensure synergy and establish a one stop shop for training and placement of competent Nigerians in the oil and gas sector.

“The enabling law of the PTDF should be repealed and the NCDMB law amended to accommodate subsuming PTDF under NCDMB.

“A management audit of the capacity programme of PTDF should be conducted to ensure that the programme addresses the needs of the oil and gas sector. 

“The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) should be abolished and its enabling law repealed. The enabling law of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC) should be repealed while its functions are subsumed under the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). 

“The enabling law of RMAFC should be amended to accommodate the functions of FRC as well as those of NSIWC.

“Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) should be merged with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) to form one agency for synergy and greater efficiency for the achievement of the ultimate goal of government with regard to employment generation and wealth creation. 

“NDE and SMEDAN should be merged to form a single agency for job and wealth creation.

“The new Agency should be called the National Agency for job Creation and Empowerment, NAJCE”

“A holistic reorganisation of the NYSC should be carried out with a view to refocusing the scheme to achieve its set goals and objectives”

“The career progression for the staff of the NYSC would engender the attainment of the highest position in the organisation.

“The Federal Government should engage the state Governors to fulfill their statutory responsibility in the provision of befitting orientation camps for corps members in the respective states.  

“Urgent steps should be taken to restructure the scheme with a view to developing a framework to cover critical areas of national socio economic development to which corps members would be deployed for their primary assignments.

“The scheme should also focus skills training and acquisition for corps members in areas other than their basic disciplines with a view to empowering them after their service.”

via The Nation