The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mallam Mohammed Idris, on Wednesday, eased fear of job losses after the implementation of the Stephen Oronsaye report.
Idris disclosed this in a statement signed by his media aide, Mr. Rabiu Ibrahim on Wednesday.
Twelve years after it received the report, the Federal Government, on Monday, approved the implementation of some of its recommendations to reduce the cost of governance.
Consequently, 29 government agencies will be merged even as eight parastatals will be subsumed into eight other agencies.
More so, four agencies have been relocated to four various ministries while one was earmarked for scrapping.
Submitted in 2012, the Oronsaye report on public sector reforms revealed that there were 541 statutory and non-statutory—Federal Government parastatals, commissions, and agencies.
A year earlier, then-President Goodluck Jonathan had set up the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, under the leadership of former Head of Civil Service, Oronsaye.
The 800-page report recommended that 263 of the statutory agencies be slashed to 161; 38 agencies be scrapped; 52 be merged and 14 be reverted to departments in various ministries.
However, Idris clarified: “The whole idea is that the government wants to reduce cost and also improve efficiency in service delivery. It does not mean that government is out to retrench workers or throw people into the labour market.”
The minister said the implementation of the report, was a clear demonstration of “President Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to fiscal prudence and responsible governance by championing a comprehensive review of the government‘s commissions, agencies, and parastatals”.
He added that the approval for the implementation of the Oronsaye report, which followed a very careful review, was to ensure that essential services were not compromised.
