In its bid to reduce recurrent expenditures of government spendings, the Federal Government is planning a 65 per cent reduction in the allowances for refreshment and meals of senior government officials.
According to sources, the Efficiency Unit in the Ministry of Finance has submitted its recommendations to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation for ratification.
The unit which has Patience Oniha as its head,was set up last year by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, to reduce the recurrent expenditure in government spending.
The unit was also empowered to engender transparency and reduce government’s large expenditure through efficiency in procurement in the various Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Part of the report is the meal allowance reduction from N13,000 to N4,000
The source also hinted that apart from the reduction in meal allowances, other recurrent expenditure items such as sitting allowance, honorarium as well as advertising and publicity would be reduced.
“You will recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had, as part of measures to cut cost of governance, approved that the Minister of Finance should set up an efficiency unit.
“That unit has in the last few months been working hard to cut the recurrent expenditure. One of the recent recommendations made by the unit is on the need to reduce allowances for meal and refreshment.
“Before now, about N13,000 per meal was being spent on each top official of government whenever they have official meetings and others engagements. But now, there are plans to reduce this to about N4,500 by the template being developed for that purpose.”
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