By Adekunle Adekoya

LAST week, the Presidential Panel on Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, headed by former head of the Cuvil Service of the Federation, Mr Steve Oronsaye submitted its report to the President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

The report, an 800-page compendium recommended the scrapping of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and conversion of 14 to departments in ministries. In all, it recommended that statutory agencies be reduced from 263 to 161 in order to reduce the cost of governance.

Well, that kind of development gives people of our calling work to do. Newsmen, opinion writers, and commentators all go to town and seek the reactions of people to the recommendations. Off the cuff, many people have offered their opinions, and there seems to be a consensus on the need for government to implement the recommendations.

But yet more people opted not to comment because they are yet to see the report, and until they have seen it and digested it, they would not be in a position to offer views on the matter. Right, it’s a free country, afterall.

What is worrisome is that the Oronsaye Panel report, as voluminous as it is, is not available to Nigerians, as wespeak. At the moment it was presented to the President, it has become a public document, and it should be available in the public domain where all citizens can access it, for their information and edification. To cut a long story short, that document should have been made available to all of us either as html or as pdf on the website of the appropriate government agency that warehouses government reports.

My question is: Why has this been difficult to do? Weren’t desktops/laptops used to type the panel’s report? If they were not typed with Olympia or Remington typewriters, why is the report not on the internet? Let us remind ourselves, especially those charged with running our affairs, that this is the 21st century, and it is a century in which a lot of people will perish for lack of knowledge.

In his speech while presenting the report, Mr Steve Oronsaye mentioned ICPC, EFCC, FRSC, the Police, NITDA, NigComSat, Galaxy Backbone, and others. Yet his panel worked on 263 agencies which are to be reduced to 161. Apart from the above, which others are part of the 263? What will the 161 they will be reduced to look like, or be called? Which agencies will merge into what? Is there anyone to be scrapped?

We need to know, and the only way we will know is for the information to be domiciled in the public domain where we can all access it. Non-availability of this report on the URL of any government agency as of today is an indication of the quality of IT mindset running government, which I believe is still largely analog despite huge sums spent to procure computers. In fact, there exists the need for a paradigm shift from analog-based governance to one driven by ICT.

In fact, is there a government agency whose duty is to publicise matters like these? If there is, staff of such agency have not earned their pay, and should be declared redundant. If there isn’t, we should have one, immediately. Everything government is doing should be publicised, for our own good, lest people transgress a law they don’t know exists.