Atiku seeks cut in FG expenditure

By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

FORMER Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, weekend, threw his weight behind recommendations of the Steve Oronsaye’s Committee and charged President Goodluck Jonathan to reduce Federal Government expenditure at the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs.

Atiku who spoke in Abuja regretted what he described as, “too much federal bureaucracy and too much centralization,” and called for the scrapping of Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Education. He said the two ministries would better serve the objectives for their establishment at the state level and that the federal government’s roles in the two ministries should be restricted to regulation.

The former VP called for financial resources to be allocated to the two lower tiers of government to make them more alive to their responsibilities of ensuring grassroots development, across the country. He expressed support for local government autonomy and the control of their resources.

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Com mission has been consulting past political leaders on the new Revenue Sharing Formula which is expected to create a more evenly distributed resource framework between the three tiers of government and among the federating units.