Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Olamilekan Adeola declared Wednesday threatened that that over 400 out of 541 Federal Government owned Ministries , Departments and Agencies ( MDAs), may be scrapped in line with the recommendation by Stephen Orosanye led Presidential Committee on rationalization of agencies.
Olamilekan who made the declaration at the second day of the ongoing interface between the Committee and heads of MDAs on revenue drive for the implementation of proposed N19.76 trillion 2023 budget, said Orosanye panel recommended retention of 106 of the MDAs.
According to him, 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.
Imminent scrapping of low revenue generating MDAs by the Federal Government as stated by Senator Adeola, came to the fore when the Director General of National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Dr Rufus Ebegba made presentation of low revenue generation by the agency to the Committee.
The DG in his submission said only N2 million has been generated by NBMA this year as against N5 million it usually generates on yearly basis and that, out of the N2.5 billion appropriated for capital budget this year, only N1.3 billion has been released.
Angered by the poor revenue generation, Senator Adeola told the Biosafety Management Agency boss, that it was unacceptable for an agency spending N500 million a year outside capital projects to be remitting N5 million 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 .
“There is no way in stopping the implementation of Orosanye panel because of economic situation at hand in the country.
“Government needs revenue for impactful budget implementation, particularly in the area of projects execution and can no longer afford to be dolling money to MDAs without corresponding returns on yearly basis .
“We in the Senate, are in support of implementation of the Orosanye led panel report to save the economy from self – inflicted bleeding”, he said
