Joda Committee Recommends 19 Ministers for Buhari

The All Progressives Congress (APC’s) transition committee led by Ahmed Joda has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to cut down the number of federal ministries to 19.

According to TheCable, an online news platform, Joda and his colleagues who reviewed the handover notes of the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, advised Buhari to appoint only 19 senior ministers and 17 ministers of state to bring the total number to 36 and satisfy an important constitution requirement stating that every state must be represented in the federal executive.

The report further said that some ministries might retain their current status if the President decides to stick by the recommendations of the Joda committee.

These include the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment; Ministry of Education; Ministry of Defence; FCT; and Finance. Others are Labour and Productivity, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Planning.

The report said, “There is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery.

The United States with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328tn – 30 times Nigeria’s GDP – has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the United Kingdom has 17.

“The current structure of the FGN with 28 ministries and 542 agencies – 50 of which have no enabling laws.

The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-Eastern crisis.

“There is an apparent conflict between the desire of reducing the cost of governance through cabinet downsize and the constitutional requirement of a cabinet-level ministerial appointment from each of the 36 states of the federation.”

The Federal Government under the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo and Jonathan between 1999-2007, and 2010-2015 respectively, had 42 ministers each.