Cost of Governance: We Don’t Need Both Senate And Reps – Shekarau

The federal government has been told to cut the high cost of governance.

A former Governor of Kano state and senator representing Kano Central, Ibrahim Shekarau made the call in an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, May 31.

He asked President Bola Tinubu to reduce the cost of governance by cutting down the number of federal lawmakers. 

The National Assembly is made up of 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members. He said; 

“Left to me, we don’t need to have the two chambers, the two houses.

“It’s costing the country. I agree, a democracy means getting as many involved as possible, but the way it is going on now, it’s almost 500 legislators nationwide; I don’t think we really need this much at the moment.”

On Tinubu’s political will, Shekarau said; 

“I wonder if he’ll have the courage to do all the constitutional amendments and go through the process, and reduce all of this.”

The former Governor also said that cutting the number of parastatals would affect the number of oversight assignments, reducing the burden at the centre. He added; 

“Then you’ll discover that the legislative arm will also have to be [downsized] because if there isn’t much to do at the centre, you don’t need all of this sea of hundreds of people really to do oversight assignments.

“I have been subscribing to the idea of devolution of powers. The Federal Government should really cut its own costs by devolving a lot of these responsibilities down the line, to the states and to the local governments.

“Unfortunately, we’ve not had leadership that has the courage. There was the Oronsaye report during Jonathan’s time, which has yet to be implemented.

“[Former President Goodluck] Jonathan did not implement it; [former President Muhammadu] Buhari did not implement it.

“The moment you create a parastatal, you’re already talking of board members, chief executive, directors, departments, and the overhead cost of running all these agencies add quite a lot to the expenses of running the government.”

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