Former Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu, has revealed why former President Muhammadu Buhari failed to implement the Steven Oronsaye report during his eight-year tenure.
Shittu noted that the Oronsaye report, which suggested the merger of some government agencies and parastatals, was never presented to Buhari during his administration.
Shittu, who was a minister between 2015 and 2019, maintained that the report was not brought to the attention of the Buhari administration, and so, it could not have been implemented.
He said, “The report had been with the previous government (Jonathan’s) but they didn’t do anything. Nobody brought it to our (Buhari government’s) attention, at least not when I was there.
“So, the issue never came up for discussion at the Federal Executive Council meeting at all. If nobody brought it and there were no complaints, we didn’t have cause to look at it at all.”
As regards the fear of job losses among civil servants, the former minister noted that only politicians would be affected as the number of appointees would reduce.
“We must avoid or do away with duplication of services because that would increase the cost of governance. When we talk about some people losing jobs, I think that national interest is more important than personal interest, and I don’t see any civil servant losing his job on that,” he stressed.
According to reports, no fewer than twenty-nine government agencies are expected to be merged, even as eight parastatals will be subsumed into eight other agencies.
Meanwhile, the Bola Tinubu-led government has inaugurated the implementation committee for the Orosanye report.