By Nafisatu Aliyu
In a bid to uphold and entrench transparency, accountability and due Process in public service and in governance, the Senate has vowed to ensure the merger of some of the over 700 federal agencies in the country believed to be draining the nation’s scarce resources. The red legislative chamber argued that most of the agencies and parastatals were not productive, but only depended on budget allocations from federal government to survive.
In view of the above, the Senate recently referred the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to the committees on Finance and National Planning. It mandated the committees to submit their report to the house in a forth night, at the plenary. The Senate also threatened that it would either merge or eliminate these identified agencies, as some of the agencies are not adding value to the nation’s economy. The lawmakers took this position at plenary when it considered the report of the Senator Adamu Aliero-led Ad-hoc Committee on the Ninth Senate Legislative Agenda.
Forty five out of the 109 Senators, who took turns to contribute to the report over a five-hour period, expressed their views. The Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, while summing up the debate said, “we must face reality of making the economy work for the people.”
