By John Ikani
The Nigerian Senate on Thursday said there may be need to scrap over 400 out of 541 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as recommended by the Stephen Orosanye-led Presidential Committee on rationalization of agencies.
This was made known by Senator Olamilekan Adeola, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance on Wednesday at a 2-day interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Finance and heads of MDAs on revenue drive for the implementation of the proposed N19.76 trillion 2023 budget.
Adeola who noted that the Orosanye panel recommended the scrapping of 400 MDAs and retention of 106 out of the 541 MDAs, added that revenue generation will guide the Senate in determining MDAs to be scrapped and those to be retained.
The lawmaker’s comment comes after the Director General of the National Bio-safety Management Agency, Dr. Rufus Ebegba, had made a presentation to the committee on low revenue generation by the agency.
During his presentation, Ebegba said the NBMA has generated only N2 million this year as against the N5 million it usually generated on yearly basis.
He added that out of the N2.5 billion appropriated for the capital budget this year, only N1.3billion was released.
Angered by the presentation, the lawmaker said it was unacceptable for an agency spending N500 million a year outside capital projects to be remitting N5 million into government coffers
What the Senate is saying
“There is no way of stopping the implementation of the Orosanye panel because of the economic situation at hand in the country,” Adeola said.
“The government needs revenue for impactful budget implementation, particularly in the area of project execution, and can no longer afford to be dolling money to MDAs without corresponding returns on yearly basis.
“We in the Senate are in support of the implementation of the Orosanye-led panel report to save the economy from self-inflicted bleeding.”
The committee was further infuriated by a submission from the Managing Director of Sokoto Rima River Basin Development Authority, Engineer Buhari Bature Mohammed, whose agency generated only N7 million after collecting N7 billion as funding for the year 2022.
