Senate Thursday, threatened to merge some of the over 700 federal agencies in the country draining the federal government budget on yearly basis .
Threat from the upper legislative chamber against the alleged unproductive federal agencies was made by the Senate President , Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan in his remarks after debate by Senators on Legislative Agenda of the 9th Senate .
According to him, more than 50% of the over 700 agencies and parastatals are more or less, drain pipes on the nation’s resources by depending solely on budget allocations from federal government to survive.
He said :”Contributions on the floor of the Senate show the focus of members on how to make our country work and the issues on our agenda are issues that will create those positive changes that will make life better for Nigerians.
“This agenda will continue to be updated. Where we feel we have new things we will do that as society evolves. I also want to say that committees will be the one to flesh this agenda.
“The task before our committees is for them to sit down and look at the challenges in he sector they oversight and come out with the ideas on how the National Assembly can come by way of legislative intervention. We want to see that done and we will reintroduce sectional reports by Senate committees at the end of the year. That is different from oversight report.
“When we engage MDAs that we oversight we expect them to give us a road map of what they are doing. They should give our committees situation reports for legislative intervention.
” I believe that the current number of Agencies of government is simply too much and unnecessary.
“We have close to 700 Agencies of government and many of them only live on budgetary provisions. They have nothing to contribute to the coffers of government.
“This implies that either we merge or simply eliminate many of them and beside we don’t have money. We don’t have the resources.
” Instead of allowing agencies that have no value to contribute , remain in existence , we should simply eliminate them or merge them and then save the money for capital budget.
“So the committee on establishment and all of us should do something. We are going to engage with the Executive on this we have to have a review of the number of agencies that we have and not only the number but the functionality because we need to create some because we need them today because of the challenges we face.
He added that the 9th Senate in line with the set agenda, will do something about the electoral reform, which according to him, supposed to be a continuous thing.
“We have to do something because of what we witnessed in the last election. We should start on time before the next election so that it will not be problematic,” he said .
The agenda, which is the working document of the 9th Senate, is encompassing and it covers areas of interest the upper chamber said will elevate the country to the next level.
Earlier during the general debate on the Agenda, forty five senators made far reaching contributions on way forward across the various sectors.
Specifically, in his contribution, Senator Rochas Okorocha ( APC Imo West), urged the Senate to introduce the principle of sacrifice, saying “we must cut our coat according to the materials available and not according to our size.”
He said the Senate must be bold enough to ask President Muhammadu Buhari what he wants so that the lawmakers will know what to do.
He called the attention of his colleagues to the projects abandoned across the country, adding that they should be completed first before new ones are initiated.
Some of the lawmakers, who also spoke pointed out that one of the problems facing the country is the local debt, which now stands at N2.5 trillion.
They also spoke on other sundry issues like the joint accounts maintained by state and local government, regional development, constitutional amendment, security, unemployment among others.
The Senate, has, however, referred the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to the Committees on Finance and National Planning and to submit their report on Wednesday, the 2nd of October at the plenary.
