Niger Governor to Downsize Workforce, Prune Ministries

Niger Governor to Downsize Workforce, Prune Ministries

 
 Sani Bello

Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello has revealed that his administration would downsize and reform the state civil service, Ministries and Parastatals to cut down the bulk of the state earned revenue which was used to pay more workers and servicing more Ministries and Parastatals than needed.

“The bulk of the state's earned revenue is spent on recurrent expenditure paying more workers than we need to run the state efficiently.
"Additionally, we intend to downsize government by rationalising existing ministries, departments and parastatals to conserve funds for capital projects", he said.
According to Sani Bello who made this revelation while in his inaugural speech at the Bako Kontagora Memorial Stadium, Minna yesterday said he was inheriting a bloated, disillusioned, unproductive and least paid civil service in the country.

"In the last eight years in particular, the effectiveness of the service had been compromised for purely narrow political interest to the extent that we are inheriting a bloated, disillusioned, unproductive and the least paid civil service in the country.
"Accordingly, the civil service will be reformed and restructured to enable it cope with the pace of the new administration and the demand for effective and efficient delivery of service to Nigerlites.
The Governor further lamented the dwindling resources and heavy debt burden the new administration was inheriting, calling on the people to be ready to make sacrifices and have a positive attitudinal change in order to realise the dream of a new Niger state.
"The challenges facing us are numerous and daunting, the most serious being the continuous dwindling revenues from the federal account, heavy external and internal debt burden, weak internally generated revenue, corruption and dishonesty in the conduct of government business in all levels including the 25 local government councils.
"An unworkable structure of government with 36 ministries and 105 parastatals, agencies, boards and corporations, multiplicity of ghost workers in the state civil service and high profile abandoned projects like the state Stadium and Minna City Centre", he pointed out.
He said the administration would carry out a forensic audit to determine the debt profile and bonds as only projects of immense socio-economic value to the state would be continued, stressing that he would ensure that the administration would be honest, transparent and accountable.
"We intend to lead by example and an effective mechanism for managing our scarce resources will be installed. All areas of wastages and leakages will be blocked. Further, the culture of excessive contracts pricing/inflation and award of ghost contracts will be stopped", he said.