Transition Committee urges Buhari to reduce Number of Ministers
The transition committee of the All Progressives Congress has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to decrease the number of federal ministries from 28 to 19, thereby appointing 19 senior ministers and 17 ministers of state.
According to reports, the Ahmed Joda-led transition committee advised the president to take the step by merging ministries as a means of reducing the cost of governance.
The committee’s report read: “there is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery. The US with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328 trillion (30 times Nigeria’s GDP) has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the UK has 17.
“The current structure of the FGN with 28 ministries and 542 agencies (50 of which have no enabling laws) [results in] very high cost of governance. The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-eastern crisis.
“[There is an] apparent conflict between the desire of reducing the cost of governance through cabinet downsize and the constitutional requirement of a cabinet-level ministerial appointment from each of the 36 states of the federation.”
Out of the 28 ministries, only nine will still get to stand alone and they were reported to include; “(1) industry, trade and investment (2) education (3) defence (4) FCT (5) finance (6) labour and productivity (7) justice (8) foreign affairs and (9) national planning.”
