SENATE ADVOCATE MERGING OF FEDERAL AGENCIES

The Senate on Thursday said it would initiate a process to merge some of the over 700 federal agencies in the country.

It claimed that the agencies were draining the Federal Government budget.

The upper chamber added that most of the institutions were not productive, but depended on budget allocations from the Federal Government to survive.

The Senate also stressed the need to either merge or eliminate them because some of the agencies were not adding value to the nation’s economy.

The Senate took this position at the plenary when it considered the report of the Ad hoc Committee on the 9th Senate Legislative Agenda.

The 45 senators, who contributed to the report, said they wanted the nation to work for the citizens.

The agenda, which is the working document of the 9th Senate, covered areas of interest the upper chamber was expected to take the country to the next level.

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, after the debate, said, “We must face the reality of making the economy work for the people.

“The number of federal agencies in this country is too many, more than 700 of them. Either we merge or eliminate some of them, because some of them don’t add value to the nation, they depend on the budget to survive.

“We will also do something about the electoral reform; it is supposed to be a continuous thing. We have to do something because of what we witnessed in the last elections.

“We should start on time before the next elections so that they will not be problematic.”

Speaking on consumer reform, Lawan said it was not ideal to pay for goods, especially cars and houses, at once as such an action encouraged corruption.