Joda's Transition Committee Wants Only 19 Ministries For Buhari's Government

SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, (THEWILL) – The Ahmed Joda-led transition committee, which submitted its final report to President Muhammadu Buhari about a week ago, has asked the President to reduce the number of federal ministries to 19.

Nigeria presently has 28 Ministries.
According to a news report published by The Cable, one of Nigeria's news websites, the committee also recommended the appointment of only 19 senior ministers and 17 junior ministers, allowing the president fulfill the constitutional requirement of appointing one minister per state. Nigeria presently has 36 states.

“There is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery. The US with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328 trillion (30 times Nigeria's GDP) has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the UK has 17.”

“The current structure of the FGN with 28 ministries and 542 agencies (50 of which have no enabling laws) [results in] very high cost of governance. The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-eastern crisis.”

“[There is an] apparent conflict between the desire of reducing the cost of governance through cabinet downsize and the constitutional requirement of a cabinet-level ministerial appointment from each of the 36 states of the federation,” the report said.

President Buhari, who was inaugurated on May 29, 2015, is yet to announced his cabinet. He attributed the delay to the late submission of the committee's report, which he said he needed to study to enable him have a grip of the current state of affairs in government.