LAGOS — A proposal by the Federal Government to expend an annual average of N27 million on each staff of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, as personnel cost caused a stir at the National Assembly, yesterday.
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, who led the DPR team and other agencies of the Ministry of Petroleum to the Senate defence hearing, however, assured that the government in a bid to curtail the burgeoning personnel cost was set to embark on a rationalization of its staff and agencies.
An estimated N30 billion of a total budget of N35 billion proposed for the DPR is earmarked for the department’s 1,100 staff.
A breakdown of the budget presentation tabled before the six committees of the National Assembly showed that of DPR’s N35, 997,149,841 budget, capital expenditure is only N4,786,302,790 while N31,210,847,051 will go to personnel costs and overheads. The budget estimate also indicated that personnel costs for DPR in 2012 is put at N30,399,182,331 while the remaining N811,664,720 is for overhead costs.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), Senator Paulker Emmanuel, while noting that the huge overhead costs in the petroleum sector was worrisome, stressed that the budgetary proposals of the agencies in the sector must focus towards the capital side as a way of enhancing value.
“I feel so worried as a Nigerian because if our budget is tailored towards that style, then, we are not creating hopes for investing in infrastructure and I hope you have noted that. I think there’s need for us to have a change and the oil industry is assumed to be a capital intensive industry.”
Addressing the Committees, Director of the DPR, Mr. Austin Olorunshola, however, said the department was about to recruit more staff within the next two weeks. It was, however, not clear if the new staff were factored into the 1,100 staff projected for in the budget.
Speaking further, Allison-Madueke told the joint committee that the executive branch was already working on rationalisation in all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
According to her, the purpose of the rationalisation was to merge some agencies and scrap others, adding that in the process, some members of staff would be laid off to reduce personnel and overhead cost of governance.
We ‘ll scale down staff – Minister
The Minister who said the situation with the recurrent expenditure profile of the DPR was symptomatic of the entire civil service in Nigeria.
“This is symptomatic of the entire federal civil service. It’s not solely in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, it goes across the civil service but that is why Mr. President has called for a critical rationalization of the ministries, departments and agencies with a view to reducing the recurrent expenditure and overheads.”
Continuing, she said “the slight increase in DPR’s recurrent budget represents provisions for anticipated recruitment of new staff to improve the overall effectiveness of the department,” adding, “You will also notice that the PPPRA is cap
By Henry Umoru & Inalegwu Shaibu
