FIVE years ago, the high cost of governments was a hot issue. The principal concern was the jumbo pay the National Assembly instituted for its privileged 469 members. Once the debate extended to other areas of government, it died. The Presidential Advisory Council, PAC, suggested reduction in the number of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

PAC’s advice was ignored; then PAC ceased to exist. Ministries and agencies are fertile soil for political patronage. Ministers, directors-general, permanent secretaries, directors, are the echelons for dispensing resources the budget awards to that section of government. Contracts funnel the resources to intended destinations. Instead of reduction, more government agencies sprouted. As political opportunities diminish in States and Local Governments (and with them patronage), the federal pool becomes the only one with resources to accommodate rising number of unemployed politicians.

Appointments are only available if more ministries and government agencies exit to meet the demands for political appointments – political expediency over-rules economics. One of the biggest fights among Ministers is about their status, especially if they are Minister of State, which reads Junior Minister.

The argument, leaning on constitutional provisions on equality of States, hammers on the absence of equity in subjugating one State to another. The political solution lies in 36 federal ministries, each with sufficient resource base to appease politicians, or agencies that are more wasteful than ministries.

The National Assembly creates agencies without thinking of the financial implications of laws that expand bureaucracy. Each new commission or department of government adds to the cost of governance.

However, these agencies hardly improve government services. They result in additional tension as government battles with political correctness in appointments. Anti-corruption agencies are good examples. There was the Code of Conduct Bureau, then Independent Corrupt and other Offences Practices Commission and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Their roles often clash. Most petitioners patronise all three. Resources are stretched and wasted. Government ignores calls to merge them for more efficiency in costs and operations. Similarly, some commissions should be departments within ministries.

Other wastes are in the unlimited number of aides for the president and governors, and spurious appointments like Chief of Staff and Chief Security Officers for local government chairmen, and even their wives. The size of governments and the agenda to cut waste should be issues in the 2015 elections. Resources are dwindling. It would require more prudent management for governments to meet their obligations, including fulfilling the promises they would make at campaigns.

It is not too late to run governments that reflect the realities of the economy. Oil income funded these wastes, which for years denied the country resources that it should have used for development.