By Dayo Adesulu

Former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, NUC, Professor Peter Okebukola has urged the Federal Government to implement the Stephen Oronsaye report, noting that implementing the report can save Nigeria N860 billion in two years.

Okebukola who disclosed this during the 2013/2014 University of Lagos, UNILAG, Convocation Lecture, held Monday, at the UNILAG Main Auditorium, decried bloated government’s recurrent expenditure, saying there is need for urgent implementation of the Oronsaye report.

Delivering a lecture on ‘Taking Advantage of a Depressing Nigerian Economy to Accelerate Socio-Economic Development’ Okebukola said: ” Data from the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, put costs of inflated contracts at about N569 billion at the Federal Level, N350 billion at the state and local governments level in seven years.”

Instead of focusing on key issues for national benefit, he noted that governments are busy with foreign conferences and jamborees which cost the country N98 billion annually.

Recall that in 2012, the federal government set up the Oronsaye Committee to look into the measures for streamlining the operations of its various organs for efficient service delivery.

The report suggested that the Federal Government should reduce the size of government to a manageable level, considering that over 70 per cent of government resources are currently channelled into running a government that is unduly large and cumbersome to manage, leaving the remaining, less than 30 percent, for issues such as debt servicing and execution of capital projects.

According to the report, reducing the size of government has become imperative given that a large government has inevitably led to stunted development and a very high level of poverty in the country.

The former NUC scribe, however, suggested that the incoming administration of General Muhammad Buhari should prune down public spendings by 45 per cent.

Decrying the level of corruption and wastage in the economy, he suggested a $45/per barrel benchmark for the next two years.

Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor, UNILAG, Prof. Rahaman Bello called on managers of the nation’s university system to serve as catalyst in repositioning the nation’s economy.