Oronsaye Dispels Rumour On NTA, FRCN, VON Merger

Chairman, Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals and Agencies, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye has dispelled the rumour that the committee had recommended the merger of NTA, FRCN and Voice of Nigeria (VON).

Oronsaye made the clarification while fielding questions from State House Correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House.

He said that the committee was still at the stage of consultations and meeting with the relevant stakeholders, but yet to take any decisions on its terms of reference.

“I came to see the president of Nigeria, he has given me an assignment and the assignment is on-going, but I can tell you one thing at this point, no decision has been reached; no recommendation has been made. We are still interacting with different Ministries Departments and Agencies.

“God helping us we should finish with the interaction by this weekend.

“I just told you that at this point in time, no recommendation has been made; no decision has been taken; we are still talking.

“I read it myself but I said I don’t join issues. If you were not at our meeting how can you just come out to make a statement when you were not there But I can tell you that no decision has been taken.’’

Oronsaye said that though there were government parastatal agencies with overlapping functions, the recommendations of the committee would not lead to job loss.

He said: “Anytime a committee of this nature is set up, the first thing people think is that we are going to rationalise people’s jobs, but we should also look at the positive side.

“Obviously we have many parastatal agencies whose functions overlapped; this is what we have been asked to look at; where there is overlap bring it up; where there is duplication bring it up.

“You know we can have a deployment of people to other agencies where they can be more productive.’’

The committee was inaugurated by President Jonathan on Aug. 18 to examine ways of reducing the cost of maintaining the more than 400 parastatal agencies in the bureaucracy.

It was mandated to study and review all previous reports and records on the restructuring of Federal Government parastatal agencies and advise on whether they are still relevant or not.

It was also mandated to examine the mandate of existing federal agencies, parastatals and commissions and determined areas of overlap or duplication of functions and make appropriate recommendations.

The president also mandated the committee to examine all enabling Acts of all the federal agencies and classify them into various sectors and make appropriate recommendations for the review of their extant laws.