Urges immediate implementation of Oronsaye report •Laments deduction of N658bn by govt agencies as cost of revenue collection in six months
CHAIRMAN of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (AERE), Dele Oye, has decried the rising cost of governance, warning that the existence of more than 900 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) is costing the country over N862 billion, while worsening the business environment and undermining economic growth.
Oye, in a statement, called on the Federal Government to urgently implement the Oronsaye Report, describing it as the most practical roadmap for reducing the cost of governance and eliminating overlapping government agencies.
He said, the Steve Oronsaye Presidential Committee on the Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, set up in 2012, recommended reducing the number of statutory federal agencies through mergers, abolitions and restructuring, with projected savings of about N862 billion between 2012 and 2015.
He lamented that despite the report and the Government’s approval of aspects of its recommendations in 2023, implementation has remained largely stalled, while the number of federal agencies has continued to grow to over 900.
Oye argued that the growing number of the agencies has created overlapping mandates, duplicated regulatory responsibilities and increased compliance costs for businesses, discouraging investment and economic expansion.
Using the recent sealing of three milk factories in Awada, Onitsha, by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) as an example, Oye said the incident highlighted the inefficiencies of Nigeria’s fragmented regulatory system.
He noted that manufacturers of food products are required to deal with multiple regulators, including the FCCPC, the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), each exercising similar regulatory powers over the same businesses.
According to him, the resulting duplication has created unnecessary bureaucracy that raises the cost of compliance and encourages many small businesses to remain in the informal sector rather than submit to multiple regulatory requirements.
Oye said, “In Nigeria, a manufacturer producing dairy products does not face one regulator; they face a constellation. NAFDAC demands product registration and facility inspection. SON demands standards compliance and certification. The FCCPC demands consumer protection compliance. Add the state environmental agency, local government trade licenses, and perhaps, the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), and you have a recipe for paralysis.
“These manufacturers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They cannot move forward without satisfying all six agencies, yet each agency operates as if it alone holds the keys to public safety. It is not merely bureaucratic inefficiency; it is bureaucratic warfare.
