FG ready to merge EFCC, BPE, wages, complaints commissions, others

[Mirror]

•Rejects scrapping of FRSC

The Federal Government may have finally agreed to scrap or merge some of its agencies as a cost saving measure based on the recommendation of the White Paper Committee to review the Stephen Oronsaye Committee's report.

The Oransaye committee report had recommended the scrapping of about 220 agencies including the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, which it noted was a replication of the mandates of two existing bodies namely: the Highway Department of the Federal Ministry of Works with respect to the maintenance of safety and orderliness on the highways and the role of the Nigeria Police Force in ensuring law and order on the roads.

It also recommended the scrapping of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, among other agencies, stressing that they were performing the traditional role of the police. However, some of the agencies to be scrapped are the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, NSIWC, Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, and the Public Complaints Commission, PCC.

While the NWSIC is to be merged with the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission, RMFAC, the PCC will be subsumed into the National Human Rights Commission.

"The government has directed the PCC be merged with the Human Rights Commission, which has the capacity to perform the functions of the PCC. It further directed that the PCC Act to be removed from the constitution by amending sections 153 and 315. "The NSIWC is to be abolished and its law repealed, while its functions are to be transferred to Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC.

"The government has directed that a 'Sunset Clause' should be introduced to the BPE to conclude its assignment and wound down," the recommendation said. The Federal Government also accepted the recommendation for the abolition of the Utilities Charges Commission and repeal of its enabling law.

The staff of the commission are to be deployed to the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, provided they are civil servants. Government also accepts the scrapping of the National Poverty Eradication Programme, NAPEP and directs that the functions of the agency should be merged with that of the National Directorate of Employment, NDE. Among the agencies to be merged is the EFCC, which will be merged with the ICPC.

The two bodies will be consolidated into one anticorruption agency and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice has been directed to initiate necessary action in respect of the proposed merger.

Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA and the Federal Highways Department of the Federal Ministry of Works are to be transformed into an extra-ministerial department, while the enabling law of FERMA is to be amended to reflect the change of status. However, according to the report, the government Federal Government rejected the Presidential Committee's recommendations that the Act setting up the FRSC be repealed.

National Mirror