Frequent change of ministers and their portfolios is detrimental to national development and service delivery and the current crop of ministers may be retained for many years in order to address this problem, President Goodluck Jonathan said in Abuja yesterday. He spoke approvingly of the Saudi Arabian and old Soviet practice where some ministers were in office for 30 to 40 years.
The President, who spoke at the 2011 Presidential Inauguration Lecture at the auditorium of Foreign Affairs Ministry in Abuja, said the duration that a minister spends on the job determines his or her competence, his familiarity with government policies as well as ensures stability in the implementation of government policies. He said Nigeria has not made any significance progress in the Mines and Steel sector because of frequent changes of ministers overseeing the sector which he put at nine months’ interval.
Jonathan said, “One thing that worries me is the duration of ministers serving. For instance from Tafawa Balewa to Odein Ajumogobia, we have 24 foreign affairs ministers in 51 years; that means an average of two years per minister. How will a country drive its foreign policies?
“For a Minister to be very conversant with his or her duties, it will take an average of two years to really understand the policies of his country viz-a-viz international interest. This is the problem we are having.
“From my interaction with Ministers of Foreign Affairs of some other countries I realized that they have to stay for a longer period. For instance, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister has stayed for 30 years.
“I am not saying any minister should serve like the defunct Soviet Union that had the longest serving minister of over 40 years, but at least you will expect that a minister, if they must transform and if that person is performing above 60% average, if you must change and develop, we expect that minister to stay for a number of years.”
On the ongoing jostle for ministerial slots, the President dismissed media reports on ministerial appointments saying, “If you open the newspapers today you will read that there are people who are lobbying to be ministers and I am at the centre of it and I know that more that 60% of the stories are not true.” He said 90 percent of politicians lobbying for ministerial appointments are doing it “either for themselves or their wives.”
Dr. Jonathan also advocated for four-year capital budgets, saying only that would allow government to achieve its budget implementation and give room for long term planning. He said there is the need for both the executive and the legislature to work together on planning for the execution of projects that would affect the lives of the people.
“I am happy that for us at the Executive level, we are now talking about having a capital budget for the duration of a government. If I am to sit here for four years, why can’t I propose for capital budget of four years especially for key projects and agree with the National Assembly?”
He said the number of post election litigations in the country has dropped by 80 per cent compared to 2007 and gave the credit to his government, to which he said provided the room for transparent general elections. “I believe by 2015 we will be able to reduce it by 95 per cent and as we progress may be in the next 20 years, going to court will be a thing of history,’’ he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment