Central Bank Governor Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on Wednesday said there was the need for the ongoing constitutional review to address the high cost of governance in the country
Sanusi made this known at the Financial Sector Forum at the just concluded 18th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
He argued that the present structure of governance in the country had contributed to high recurrent expenditure in the budget.
“ Salaries and wages are paid not just to civil servants. This is a country where we have 774 local government councils; in each council you have a chairman, a vice chairman and may be 10 councilors.
“Take a state like Kano; Kano used to be one state; it is now Kano and Jigawa; when it was one state, you had one governor, may be nine or 10 commissioners.
“Now what do you have; that one state has become two states, two governors, two deputy governors, 40 commissioners, and may be 80 legislators; only God knows how many special advisers and assistants.
“This is not about NLC or TUC or the president of the National Assembly; it is about us as a country deciding whether this constitution we have chosen makes sense.’’
According to him, there is no connection between the number of ministers at the federal level and the number of states in the country.
He added that the idea of federal character was not healthy for the country.
Sanusi said, “Let us be realistic; between 1999 and now, how many ministers have we had? we’ve had 42; we do cabinet reshuffling and we have more; I am sure that between 1999 and now we have had 100 ministers.
“These are issues we have to address; they are political issues; as a country, we have a constitution that makes it impossible for us to develop.”
He said that government existed to serve people, adding that it was not sensible for the government to continue to spend 70 per cent of the country’s revenue on itself and 30 for the people.
He said that sacking the Central Bank Governor would not help the situation rather Nigerians must ensure that the issue at hand was how to effect change in the system.
“The greatest challenge facing this country is the challenge of a people that has lost sight of importance of merit. ‘’
?Sanusi said that many countries in the world witnessed corruption, but placed merit in whatever they did to get positive results.
He urged the Nigerian elites to live up to the expectations of Nigerians who voted for them and ensure that they played their roles to move the country forward.