We run an expensive and unsustainable government – Osinbajo

The Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo has said that Nigeria runs a government that is both expensive and unsustainable.

He stated that, there is the very urgent need for a national debate to examine issues around size and cost of governance.

Osinbajo made this statement at a webinar organised by the Emmanuel Chapel with the theme “Economic Stability beyond Covid19.”

Osinbajo said, “There is no question that we are dealing with large and expensive government, but as you know, given the current constitutional structure, those who would have to vote to reduce (the size of) government, especially to become part-time legislators, are the very legislators themselves. So, you can imagine that we may not get very much traction if they are asked to vote themselves, as it were, out of their current relatively decent circumstances.”

Furthermore, he said “So, I think there is a need for a national debate on this question and there is a need for us to ensure that we are not wasting the kind of resources that we ought to use for development on overheads. At the moment, our overheads are almost 70 per cent of revenues, so there is no question at all that we must reduce the size of government.

He went on to say “Part of what you would see in the Economic Sustainability Plan also and several of the other initiatives is trying to go, to some extent, to what was recommended in the (Steve) Oransaye Report, to collapse a few of the agencies to become a bit more efficient and make government much more efficient with whatever it has.”

He concluded by saying the present government was doing all possible to cut cost as best as it could.