By Nathaniel Zaccheaus
The Senate has asked the Federal Government to implement the Stephen Orosanye-led Presidential Committee on rationalization of Federal Agencies’ Report.
The red chamber said doing so was necessary in order to save Nigeria from its current dwindling revenue profile and economic crisis.
The Upper Chamber also challenged the agricultural research institutes in the country to revitalize the cultivation of cash crops like cocoa, groundnut, rubber and palm oil plantations in the country to further diversify the economy from crude oil.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola, stated this at the second day of an interactive session on the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP).
Adeola said the implementation of the Oronsanye report would help the dwindling revenue situation of the country.
He said over 400 out of the 541 Federal Government owned Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs) , would be scrapped as recommended by Oronsanye report.
Adeola said, “Revenue generation is the most critical factor being considered by the federal government to decide the 106 MDAs to be retained and over 400 others to be scrapped.
“The imminent scrapping of low revenue generating MDAs by the Federal Government as stated by Adeola, came to the fore when the Director General of National Biosafety Management Agency ( NBMA), Dr Rufus Ebegba made his presentation of low revenue generation by the agency to the committee.
The DG in his submission said only N2million has been generated by NBMA this year as against the N5million it usually generates on yearly basis and that, out of the N2 .5billion appropriated for the capital budget this year, only N1.3billion has been released.
Irked by the poor revenue generation, Senator Adeola told the Biosafety Management Agency boss, that it was unacceptable for an agency spending N500million a year outside capital projects to be remitting N5milllion into government coffers.
He declared that the time for such low revenue generation by any government agency was over, as those not meeting up, will be scrapped as recommended by the Orosanye panel.
He said, “There is no way in stopping the implementation of the Orosanye panel because of the economic situation at hand in the country .
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The committee expressed dissatisfaction with the submission made by the Managing Director of Sokoto Rima River Basin Development Authority ( SRRBDA) , Mr Buhari Bature Mohammed who said out of the N7bn collected from the government as funding for the year 2022, the agency was only able to generate N7m revenue.
It consequently declared that Orosanye report should be applied to agencies with yearly low revenue generation.
The committee also threatened zero budget allocation in the year 2023 for any agency whose accounting officer refused to honour the ongoing interface on revenue generation.
Adeola said, “There is no way, with the current economic situation that we will not implement Oronsanye report.
The Senator, however, disclosed that any government agency that generates enough revenue for national development would not be affected by the rationalisation.
He also said that it had become imperative for the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, CRIN, to assist in the diversification of Nigeria’s economy from crude oil to other agricultural commodity products due to the poor revenue profile of the nation.
The chairman said there was a new economic order in Nigeria that required ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs of the federal government to think of alternatives to improve the country’s revenue profile.
He said an emphasis at the moment should be on how best to earn more foreign exchange.
He added that cocoa, groundnut, rubber and palm oil were major foreign exchange sources for Nigeria in the past.
The chairman said the Senate was committed to ensuring the setting up of the required regulatory bodies to drive the production of the commodity products.
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The Senator also called for the provision of relevant data on monthly, and yearly production and sale of cocoa from the agric institute.
Executive Director of CRIN, Dr. Patrick Adebola, explained that the institute has estate plantations of cocoa, cashew and coffee in all the six geo-political zones of the country.
He added that efforts were on to make agricultural products the mainstay of the economy as it used to be before the advent of oil.
Adebola lamented that Nigeria which used to be the second highest cocoa producer in the world now ranks fourth after Indonesia, Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana.
He assured the Senate panel that the country would soon recover its rightful place with efforts being put in place by the federal government.
He then disclosed that CRIN had diversified into the production of cocoa bread, cocoa juice, and cocoa butter, among others, to further boost its revenue generation.
