Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, July 01, 2004.
Senate panel urges reduction of FG workforce
By Maxwell Oditta
Senior
Correspondent, Lagos
The
Senate Committee on Public Accounts is considering the reduction of the federal
government workforce by as much as 50 per cent.
Already
a call has gone out to the Federal Government to urgently consider the proposal
as the wage bill was getting higher by the day and capable of eventually
overwhelming the federal government, if nothing urgent was done.
The
Committee Chairman, Mamman Ali who made the call on Wednesday when he led a
three-man team on fact-finding visit to Police College, Ikeja, Lagos said
“we will be faced with two options: demobilising or retiring civil
servants as was done under the Murtala Muhammed regime.
“May
be we will retire civil servants and give them 100 percent of their salaries.
That way, those who are retired will be able to establish some business on
their own, while the rest continue with public service”, he explained.
The
team included Committee on Local and Foreign Debts Chairman, Patrick Osakwe.
Ali
said in an interview that such a down sizing will ensure that the critical
elements of government, which include the Nigeria Police, are properly funded.
Abuja
devotes 70 per cent of annual budget to recurrent expenditure, basically
salaries and perks, leaving sensitive agencies under-funded.
Ali
scoffed at the poor meals trainee policemen are given, evident in palls of
cooked rice and fresh fish in the college kitchen. He attributed this to the
N100 per day feeding allowance approved by the National Assembly for each
trainee.
“In
civilised countries, policemen in training are fed as policemen, not as
criminals”, he noted.
Six
police training units spend N200 million yearly on feeding alone.
Ali
appealed to the government to rethink police recruitment figures and the idea
of 40,000 yearly intakes into the force, saying the number over-stretches
existing facilities.
The
police college in Ikeja alone owes contractors no less than N128 million, its
Commandant, Tunde Alapini told the visitors.
He
said he has made presentation to
Police Inspector General (IG), Tafa Balogun on the debt incurred from
the deficit in recent allocations to the college and that the IG has assured
that an amount devoted to the redemption of debts has been included in this
year’s supplementary budget.
Alapini
stressed that the monthly subvention of N100,000 to the school could not meet
pressing infrastructure needs, which include upgrading of medical facilities
and construction of halls, hostels and classrooms.
Ali
defined the essence of his committee’s visit as an enquiry into how the
government spends 70 per cent on recurrent budget, while its agencies, the
presumed main beneficiaries, still groan of under-funding.
His
words: “The total budget of the federation is on the increase, the total
figure of recurrent budget is on a geometrical rise. The last budget has about
70 per cent recurrent. The Public Accounts Committee is interested in knowing
that every per cent of the budget allocated to any sector is being used
judiciously.”
“The
reality is that the police have an increase in budgetary allocation since the
advent of democracy. It has leapt from zero recruitment to 40,000 recruitment
annually. Is there any government agency that has increased its recruitment
from zero per cent to 40 per cent? It is only the police. So, if we have to
determine how 70 per cent of the budget is recurrent, we have to come to the
police”.
The
committee had begun audit evaluation of facilities at police installations in
Lagos, starting off with the visit to the college.
The
State Police Commissioner, Israel Ajao, was optimistic that the visit would
highlight dilapidated infrastructure and general want of facilities at the
college, thereby vindicating police authorities’ agitation for enhanced
facilities.
