…Says it won’t tolerate excuses from ministers
The Federal Government (FG) has given reason for creating additional ministries pointing out that the aim is to enhance specialization and increase productivity.
Ajuri Ngelale, Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, during an interview on Channels TV on Monday said when ministers’ focus on critical assignments it will result in efficiency and that would be in the best interest of the country.
He said, “I had a conversation around this same issue a few days ago with Mr. President. What he says in private is what he says in public, and in his view there is an urgent need to enhance specialization by the federal government.
“You’ll recall that in the first term of President Muhammadu Buhari, that former governor Babatunde Fashola was given a portfolio that included, Works, Housing and Power. Three different sectors on one person.
“Everybody knows the competence and capability of Fashola, but there was no doubt that it was too huge an undertaking for anybody and each represented a huge deficit within the status.
“What the President said is that looking at the rubble of the deficit, we are talking about 50 years of deficit. This is not any kind of negative judgment upon President Muhammadu Buhari. He did his best within the limit of the resources available to him. The President’s position is that if we can enhance specialization, getting Housing into the hands of a man like Alhaji Musa Dangiwa, who had the experience reforming the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, suits well to reform the Housing sector.
“He doesn’t have to worry about Works, and Power, what he will focus on is just Housing. The efficiency and the value from what you can get from each individual unit focusing on one critical assignment will be in the best interest of the country.
He added, “The President said if he assigns a minister to a ministry and he is focused there is no excuse for failure. At that stage you can hold any of them accountable for each critical sector of the economy.
“If you have two or three ministries controlled by one person there will be a problem. I’ll use the former Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Social Development and Disaster Management as an example. Recall in the last administration in spite of the best intentions, there were lots of challenges with respect to implementation. It wasn’t about intention or wanting to do that, it was about the fact that you had massive bureaucracy trying to deal with 250 million Nigerians with one individual on top of it.
“You find that in the process the implementation of the programmes were faulty. If we can be efficient in our policy execution it’ll more than make up for the fact that you have more than five of six ministers than the previous administration had. We believe that it’ll enhance more specialization in the ministers,” he said.
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