27 June 2019
Running a State government would now require you to think like a CEO. You have to consider your profit margin as you approve expenses and other running cost. If it cost more to run the state monthly than what is generated monthly then you have to restratagize or the state structure will collapse.
The recent increase in civil servants salaries without a corresponding increase in allocations or increase in IGR will put a lot of states in a big mess very soon.
Governors that will succeed would need to start thinking like CEOs. If what goes out is more than what comes in then restratagize your governance priorities. It becomes a matter of choices. Choose what will work and let some things for the future.
Additional loans obviously is not the way out because it cannot be sustained in the long term.
Restructuring and reforming the civil service is over due. Our current civil service created during the colonial era was not created as a policy framework for government, rather it was created for day to day service delivery.
Now most of the services previously performed by the civil service are now handled by contractors. To an extent the civil service is perceived by most state governors as a burden to government since to an extent her usefulness is gradually becoming redundant.
Reform in my thinking is the only way out. Bring the civil service to a manageable size comfortable to accommodate in the budget. We need to redefine the role of the civil servants in our contemporary post independence democracy.
There was a time when staff from ministry of works were involved in day to day clearing of grasses, cleaning gutters, tarring local roads, building and maintaining state housing properties, today all those services are handled by contractors majority of whom are politicians. It’s time we choose whether to go back to engaging the civil service in service delivery or continue with contractors. Common sense economics needed now.
The system as designed cannot work, it is crumbling daily. I feel pity for most state governors because gradually they are having sleepless nights for a problem they cannot control.
I call it the burden of democracy and development. To be realistic, the only way out now is either to increase local taxes and create new levies or cut down the cost of governance, that’s what a CEO will do.
If machinery of state must continue to run then someone has to pay for it. If the numbers does not add up, there’s no magic to make it add up, we just need to do the needful.
Odidi writes from Atlanta in Georgia
