The Federal Government is set to slash salaries of civil servants and merge agencies with duplicating functions in its efforts to weather the rough economic storm it currently faces.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, stated this in Abuja at the ongoing ‘National Policy Dialogue on Corruption and Cost of Governance in Nigeria’, where he also disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the salaries committee to review payroll and also review the number of agencies.
She said the government will need to remove unnecessary items from the budget as a move to cut the cost of governance in the country in line with the 2011 Steve Oransanye Committee report, an 800-page document, which had far-reaching recommendations on MDAs that should be scrapped.
She noted that the government had approved a N13.88 trillion budget with a deficit of over N5.6 trillion,adding that government projected a revenue of N7.98 trillion to fund part of the 2021 budget.
Ahmed advised that all agencies should come together to trim their costs amid dwindling revenue.
She said : “We need to work together, all agencies of the government to cut down our cost. We need to cut down unnecessary expenditures. Expenditures that we can do without.Our budgets are filled year-in year-out with projects that we see over and over again and also projects that are not necessary.
“Mr President has directed that the salaries committee that I chair, work together with the head of service and other members of the committee to review the government pay rolls in terms of stepping down on cost.”
The Minister said that the Federal Government would also review the number of government agencies in terms of their mandates.
