The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has advised the Federal Government to sack at least half of its workforce to maintain a sustainable economy.
The CBN boss, stated this at the second Annual Capital Market Committee retreat in Warri, Delta State, saying the government is spending over 70 per cent of its earning on salaries and entitlements, which according to him is not a sound economical principle.
In his words, “At the moment, 70 per cent of Federal Government’s revenue goes for payment of salaries and entitlement of civil servants, leaving 30 percent for development of 167million Nigerians. That means that for every naira government earns, 70kobo is consumed by civil servants.
“You have to fire half of the civil service because the revenue government has is supposed to be for 167million Nigerians. Any society where government spends 70 per cent of its revenue on its civil service has a problem. It is unsustainable.”
He also lamented the amount of money spent on running the office of the lawmakers, adding that Nigerian does not need 100 senators and over 400 representatives to make laws. In his analysis, he said the government spends all its revenue on servicing the executives, lawmakers, and civil servants.
Furthermore, Sanusi condemned the monies used for the maintenance of 774 local government council chairmen and councillors, which he termed as “wastage.”
“Do we need 774 local governments, do we need 36 states some of which are unviable? Why not just remove them and have only state governments?”
“There are state governors whose monthly allocation is barely enough to pay salaries. I hear such governors complain and I say ‘why complain when the solution is simple?’ It is irresponsible to use all money to pay salaries and wait for another month’s allocation and pay salaries and after four years, you would have done nothing.”
According to the CBN Boss, the government should totally remove fuel subsidy but he said, first the government should hold those who stole from the subsidy money to pay back saying “People have the right to demand transparency. If you want to remove subsidy, you have to show what happened to those who stole.”
Sanusi also called on the government to leave investments on infrastructure to the private sector and concentrate on building of schools, health centres and other social services.
