A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Salihu Nataro, has advised the Federal Government to reduce public expenditure instead of contemplating more taxes on certain commodities.
He argued that the best way to move the country forward is to look for ways to reduce public expenditure by introducing Monetisation Act, stressing that the Federal Government should enforce the Local Content Act.
The APC stalwart said the government should also review the Pension Act to make it mandatory for all public servants to serve at least 20 years to be eligible for the benefit, excluding the Army, Police and officials of Department of State Services (DSS).
“Also, the government could change the entire service to transit all civil servant below Level 15 to become contract workers,” he said, noting that another approach was for the government to stop all the ministries from constructing new office blocks.
He continued: “Advancement in technology doesn’t need much personnel in any office, especially for establishment such as the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Customs and Excise, National Drug Law enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).”
Nataro observed that a lot of parastatals under the Ministry of Education, including the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB), were unnecessary and irrelevant in the new world order.
On the issue of layoffs being contemplated in the federal civil service, Nataro said, “it is a very minor issue to disengage 60 per cent of the total workforce, provided that the Federal Government would give them long-term credit facilities to go into agribusiness, while the rest could be absorbed into teaching.”
Nataro, who aspires to govern Kebbi State, said the ease of doing business in Nigeria was another way to empower the public sector, pointing out that it would spur development in any modern society by reducing the stress public companies go through when paying official dues to organisation like FIRS, Industrial Trust Fund (ITF) and the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).
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