Legal practitioner, Amobi Ferdinand Nwigwe, has charged President Tinubu-led Federal Government to cut down on the cost of governance by implementing the report of the Steven Oronsaye Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan established the Oronsaye committee in 2011 to investigate ways to lower the cost of running the federal government. It turned in its report in April 2012.
Nwigwe, who spoke during a Radio programme titled ‘Townhall’ with the theme: ‘Fuel subsidy removal: Views from concerned citizens’ said if the government had implemented the Oronsaye report, it would have saved money to plough into providing palliatives for citizens.
He said the Federal Government could provide loan facilities to real’ farmers to boost food production, free education, houses for the less-privileged and physically challenged, inter-city train stations along with subsidised aviation fuel and the establishment of one-square free meal per day at major locations from the money saved from reducing the cost of governance.
He said: “When you talk about saving costs through the removal of fuel subsidy, what about the cost of governance? We must bring down the cost of governance in Nigeria. We budget, sometimes, N20 trillion a year and spend about 75 per cent of the budget on recurrent expenditure, why can’t you save that money so you can use it on capital expenditure and palliatives for the people? How much do we even pay for the fuel subsidy? It is not up 20 per cent of the money they use to run the Government. Why can’t we implement the Oronsaye Committee report? Nwigwe said his recommendations would go a long way in addressing the hardship caused by the fuel subsidy removal.
“I am looking at something that is enduring not something that is like a one-off payment… something that would really touch millions of Nigerians. For instance, if the president had come out to say I am going to give free education to Nigerians – from primary to secondary school level, this will free funds for the families for their children to go to school instead of the president proposing loans for students. We have about 15 million out-of-school children, so if you have this kind of palliative, Nigerians will embrace it. Remember we have a major problem in the education sector and education is everything.