17 Dec 2006 |
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The Pruning Of Federal Ministries The decision of the Federal Government to reduce the number of Federal Ministries from 29 to 17 should be commended but there is a lot more that needs to be done to achieve the objective of a small and lean government that will be based on a culture of efficiency and performance. The pruning of the Ministries is part of the Obasanjo government's reform of the Nigerian bureaucracy, earlier steps in that direction had included privatization, monetization of benefits, and reduction of the civil service workforce. It is a pity, however, that this right-sizing of the Federal bureaucracy is coming only five months to the end of the Obasanjo tenure. If the President had done this a few years earlier, his government would have had the opportunity to test the new structure and ensure its proper establishment. The present bloated bureaucracy was inherited from the military governments of the past, but the politicians have benefited from it also because it has afforded them an opportunity to dispense patronage. The bigger the size of government bureaucracy, the more there are opportunities for appointing persons to positions. The danger as we have seen is that over the years, this has not served the purpose of efficient service delivery. The Nigerian bureaucracy became a sinecure for idlers and petty crooks, who hide under the cover of the might of the state to enrich themselves. Too many persons found themselves in positions where they were required to do nothing other than push files and collect salaries. Ministries and departments were created which merely duplicated existing functions. The Obasanjo government has provided the necessary focus; looking at the new list which is supposed to take effect in January, there is a sense of precision, with the following emphasis: The Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Integration in Africa, Energy, Petroleum Resources, Mines and Power, Information, Agriculture and Water Resources, Environment and Housing, Youth, Women Affairs and Social Development, Labour, Finance, Health, Education, Defence, Science and Technology and Justice. The example that has been set by the Federal government should be emulated by the state governments where there is so much fat in the bureaucracy. In some states, there are Ministries dedicated to Special Duties, Chieftaincy Affairs and some abstractions which have no direct impact on the lives of the people. The principle of it is that any position in government must have a specific function, and it must be evaluated on the basis of how it adds value to the overall development framework. The sad truth is that in many states of the federation, the concept of big government is seen as a reflection of the scope of the Governor's influence or generosity. The key product is a culture of indolence and waste. But now that the Federal Government has taken the lead, the other area that it needs to consider is the structure of government business. To deliver a lean and efficient government, we must do away with the idea of Ministers of State. No Ministry needs more than one Minister. The thing to do is to strengthen the bureaucracy and ensure that the Ministry is manned by well-trained and experienced persons who are willing to serve the state. Ministers don't have to do much. Ministers of state merely duplicate privileges and cost. Besides, there are too many Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants, Special Assistants, Personal Assistants ( a category that includes concubines, mistresses and girlfriends all feeding fat on the state), hanging around the corridors of power. They should be turned adrift, or their number drastically reduced. Then, no government official including the President should be allowed to travel in a convoy. A typical convoy in Nigeria would include a chain of cars (many of which would be empty); a retinue of policemen (who would be better off ensuring the safety of lives and property), about ten special assistants (who do nothing other than to hang around to remind the public official that he or she is a distinguished personality). I have actually seen Personal Assistants of public officials whose only job is to collect business cards on behalf of the Minister, and answer phone calls. And yet the so-called Minister is not handicapped; only a few months earlier he or she probably used to sweat in the crazy Lagos traffic in a run-down, second-hand car without air conditioning! You actually need to see a Federal Minister on the move. When a Minister moves from one location to another, work in the Ministry is suspended for a while. The Governors are worse. One Governor once kept us off the road for twenty minutes with his long and unending convoy! And you wonder: how much valuable state time and resources are deployed just to massage the ego of one man. This is the root of big government and the actual source of waste. I like to cite the example of Botswana. Shortly after President Obasanjo was released by the Abubakar government in 1998, one of the countries he visited was Botswana. I was part of that event. When the then President of Botswana, Festus Mogae arrived at the hotel where an international audience of parliamentarians was meeting with President Obasanjo, he had only two cars, and just a few policemen in his entourage. There were no sirens, no bomb squad, absolutely no commotion. The country's Chief of Army Staff, or was it Defence now (?) came to the event without any noise at all. And yet he was introduced as a very important man in the country. Everyday here in Lagos, I am chased off the road by one star Generals! Or a fraudster with enough connections to hire a siren-bearing vehicle which leads him through the city as he and his latest mistress find their way to their next rendezvous. Ghana, next door is a more prudent country because of the modesty of its leaders. President Kuffour lives in a typical neighbourhhood. There is no armoured car in front of his house. Dele Momodu, the publisher of Ovation, the founder of the House of Ovation in Accra, and one of Nigeria's unsung ambassadors of goodwill, lives on the same street with President Kuffour. He likes to tell every visitor to his house to drive past Kuffour's residence and appreciate the simplicity of power and office, something that is a big problem for Nigerian leaders. The amount of money that is used to decorate Nigerian leaders with an air of importance is too huge. If we want small government, we must begin by eliminating the fat around the corridors of power. We have too many invalids in public positions: big men who cannot receive phone calls or read newspapers (someone else is employed to read the papers and then prepare a summary for the big man!), they can no longer drive a car or change a bulb, for every function that they have to perform, someone has to be employed and paid huge fees. There are government officials who even employ assistants at government expense to help them remove their babariga at the end of the day, pull off their smelly socks and shoes, and scratch their scaly backs! And because this is so, government has become the biggest business in our land. In other countries, when a man is called upon to serve, he sees it as an opportunity to give back to society. Here, it is an opportunity to steal, and feed fat, and that is why every appointment to a public position is followed by a thanksgiving service in the church or mosque, and congratulatory messages from contractors and well-wishers who see their friend's elevation as an opportunity to gain vicarious access to power. Our problem therefore is not only structural, but cultural, and by culture here I do not mean anthropology, but the established tradition of government business. At the risk of sounding repetitive, for I had made this point last week, may I add that no reform in the government bureaucracy can be meaningful without a true reform of the civil service. Political leaders are birds of passage; civil servants are the real custodians of the machinery of government. There are General Orders in the civil service in form of rules and regulations which are meant to guide government business. Under the military, these rules were abandoned; the Nigerian civil service is yet to adopt a change of attitude. When Governors and Ministers use public funds for personal purposes (to send a girlfriend abroad, to patronise traditional rulers, to service relationships, to run political campaigns, to entertain and amuse family relations), it is the duty of the responsible civil servant to draw attention to the rules: "Sir, this is not allowed, you cannot do this". But these days, it is the civil servants themselves who encourage the man of authority to break the law. Their excuse: "we are only carrying out orders". Whose orders? We need civil servants who are first and foremost patriots and who know their onions. No amount of structural reform would have any significant effect without the necessary reforms at the cultural and individual levels. These are issues that could have been sorted out and the appropriate lessons learnt, if the present restructuring of the Federal Government had come much earlier. Unfortunately, in this as in other matters, the Obasanjo government is arriving late at the goal post.
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