Since assuming office in May last year, President Buhari has made cutting the cost of governance one of his main priorities. Among other things, he has reduced the size of government entourages on international trips and streamlined the number of officials in his administration.
In continuation of the on-going efficiency drive President Buhari has now banned the procurement and distribution of conference bags, T-shirts and other souvenirs at events and activities such as conferences, workshops and seminars. These new measures were approved by President Buhari following recommendations by the Efficiency Unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
This directive, which is a recognition of the fact that in a period of lean financial resources in the face of huge national infrastructural deficit, wasteful and unnecessary expenditure on overheads must be cut. It was decided that the government should utilise such funds for infrastructure and services such as health and education that would have direct positive impact on the wellbeing of the citizenry and promote economic development.
In addition, the directive also contained specific guidelines that would reduce the cost of printing invitation cards, programme of events, brochures, folders and note pads. Among the guidelines are that they should be in black and white and limited to only one page and in the case of brochures, they should be streamlined to contain only essential information.
Similarly, the directive has banned the printing of unnecessary publications and books of short shelf life which have no real value to the concerned public institutions or the citizens. While noting the need for the citizenry and other interested parties to be aware of the initiatives, activities and programmes being implemented by the government, government agencies were directed to save costs by uploading such publications on their websites which have the added benefit of wider visibility and print only limited number of hard copies of such publications.
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