Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, has indicated that there is no set timeline yet for implementing the Steve Oronsaye Report.
He made this statement on Tuesday during an interview following an official visit to the headquarters of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in Abuja.
Gbajabiamila, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, dismissed claims that the report has been stalled, emphasizing that the Federal Government is diligently working on the necessary arrangements to ensure a smooth rollout of the policy when the time comes.
Under former President Muhammadu Buhari, the 12-year-old report saw little progress, but the current administration has committed to implementing it as part of its cost-cutting strategy. In February, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), led by President Bola Tinubu, approved the full implementation of the Oronsaye Report. This plan involves merging, subsuming, scrapping, or relocating various parastatals, agencies, and commissions.
The government’s decision is aimed at reducing the cost of governance and improving efficiency across the board. To facilitate these changes, FEC established an eight-member committee tasked with carrying out the mergers, scrapping, and relocations within 12 weeks.
However, six months later, the report has yet to be implemented. Instead, in July, the President created a Ministry of Livestock Development from the existing Ministry of Agriculture, a move that has sparked mixed reactions.
The Oronsaye Report originated in 2011 when then-President Goodluck Jonathan appointed the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, and Agencies, chaired by Steve Oronsaye. On April 16, 2012, the committee submitted an 800-page report that identified, among other issues, the overlap of agencies, leading to excessive expenditure.
The report found 541 parastatals, commissions, and agencies, and recommended reducing the number to 161, abolishing 38, and merging 52.