President Bola Tinubu on Monday approved the adoption of the Stephen Oronsaye report for reducing the cost of governance 12 years after the report was submitted.
Consequently, 29 government agencies will be merged while eight parastatals will be subsumed into eight other agencies.
Four agencies have been relocated to four various ministries and while one was earmarked for scrapping.
Minister of information and national orientation Mohammed Idris announced this on Monday after the federal executive council meeting at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
Submitted in 2012, the Oronsaye report on public sector reforms revealed that there were 541—statutory and non-statutory—Federal Government parastatals, commissions and agencies.
The 800-page report recommended that 263 of the statutory agencies be slashed to 161; 38 agencies be scrapped; 52 be merged and 14 be reverted to departments in various ministries.
Idris assured that the move would not lead to job losses and redundancies in the affected agencies.
“It is important to note that the fact that the Oronsanye report has been approved and adopted by council today does not mean that people will lose their jobs.
“All those who are employed, whether they have been moved, subsumed or scrapped will find accommodation with that within relevant government agencies. Nobody is going to lose his job as a result of that,” he added.
The president’s special adviser on policy coordination Hadiza Bala-Usman announced the agencies to be merged to include the National Agency for Control of HIV/AIDS to be merged with the Centre for Disease Control in the Federal Ministry of Health.
The National Emergency Management Agency is to be merged with the National Commission for Refugee Migration and Internally Displaced Persons; the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa is to be merged with the Directorate of Technical Aid and to function as a department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission will be merged with the Bureau for Public Enterprises; the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission to be integrated into the Nigerian Export Promotion Council as the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure will now be one with the National Centre for Agriculture Mechanisation and Project Development Institute.
Also, the National Biotechnology Development Agency will be amalgamated with the National Centre for Genetic Resource and Biotechnology, the National Institute for Leather Science Technology with the National Institute for Chemical Technology and the Nomadic Education Commission with the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult Education and Non-formal Education.
The Federal Radio Corporation will be merged with the Voice of Nigeria; the National Commission for Museum and Monuments with the National Gallery of Arts; the National Theatre with the National Troupe of Nigeria and the National Metrological Development Centre with the National Metrological Training Institute.
In a similar vein, the Nigerian Army University, Biu, Borno State will now function as a faculty within the Nigerian Defence Academy while the Air Force Institute of Technology will become a faculty of the Nigerian Defence Academy.
According to Bala-Usman, the Service Compact with Nigeria, popularly known as SERVICOM, has been subsumed to function as a department under the Bureau for Public Service Reform; the Border Communities Development Agency becomes a department at the National Boundary Commission while the National Salaries Income and Wages Commission was subsumed into the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission.
The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution was subsumed under the Institute for International Affairs; the Public Complaints Commission under the National Human Rights Commission; the Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis into the Institute for Veterinary Research; the National Medicine Development Agency under the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development and the National Intelligence Agency Pension Commission under the Nigerian Pension Commission.
She announced that the Niger Delta Power Holding Company has been relocated to the Ministry of Power; the National Agricultural Land Development Agency to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security; the National Blood Service Commission has been converted into an agency and relocated to the Federal Ministry of Health even as the Nigerian Diaspora Commission becomes an agency at the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The presidential aide revealed that Tinubu constituted a committee to midwife the necessary restructuring and legislative amendments needed to ensure full actualisation of the approvals granted. The committee has 12 weeks to do the job.
