Volcanic Sanusi Erupts: Reduce Nigeria’s Civil Service Population By 50%

In what can only be termed a bitter truth, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido on Tuesday called on the Federal Government to fire at least 50 per cent of its entire workforce.
Sanusi, who was shooting from the hips, made the call in his presentation at the Second Annual Capital Market Committee Retreat in Warri, Delta State. He lamented the practice where 70 per cent of the nations’s budget is spent on salaries and entitlements of civil servants.
Sanusi, at the retreat on Tuesday, once again drew attention to the nation’s over bloated government machinery and advocated a more compact and less expensive system of government that would reduce overhead costs.

He said, “At the moment 70 per cent of Federal Government’s revenue goes for payment of salaries and entitlement of civil servants, leaving 30 per cent for development of 167 million Nigerians. That means that for every naira government earns, 70 kobo is consumed by civil servants. “You have to fire half of the civil service because the revenue of the government is supposed to be for 167 million Nigerians. Any society where government spends 70 per cent of its revenue on its civil service has a problem. It is unsustainable.
“The various tiers of government should cut down their recurrent expenditure and use the fund to provide basic infrastructure like schools, hospital, etc.

“How can we be using the proceeds from our major source of revenue to service recurrent expenditure, by paying salaries, allowances, etc. The country should be thinking of enhancing its productivity base rather than spending on things that cannot create wealth.”
Sanusi who specifically decried the number of Nigerians in the National Assembly, added that the country did not need over 100 senators, 400 members of the House of Representatives to make laws. He said when the expenses of lawmakers, civil servants and those in the executive arm of government are summed up, Nigerians will find out that their national revenue has been consumed by the Executive, lawmakers and civil servants.
The local governments were not also spared as Sanusi hammered on the‘wastage’ of funds on the maintenance of 774 Local Government Area chairmen, their aides, councillors and other appendages of the third tier of government.
“Do we need 774 LGAs? Do we need 36 states some of which are not viable? why not just remove them and have only state governments?,” he asked rhethorically.
According to him, “there are state governors whose monthly allocations are barely enough to pay salaries. I hear such governors complain and I say ‘why complain when the solution is simple?’ It is irresponsible to use all your money to pay salaries and wait for another month’s allocation and pay salaries and after four years, you would have done nothing.”
While calling for a complete removal of petrol subsidy, Sanusi suggested that those who stole subsidy funds should be punished first. “People have the right to demand transparency. If you want to remove subsidy, you have to show what happened to those who stole” he said.

SOURCE: InformationNigeria.org