Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has lamented over President Bola Tinubu’s continuous appointments a day after the presidency appointed six more media aides.
PENGASSAN president Festus Osifo spoke at the union’s Energy and Labour Summit 2023 in Abuja yesterday.
Osifo, also president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), claimed that the current state of the nation required shrinking the size of government to reduce costs rather than lavish expenditure on managing the nation’s operations.
He said it was unjust for Nigerians to suffer the brunt of losing fuel subsidies while the government carries on as usual, living in luxury.
His words:
“You cannot continuously do things the way it was done in the past, and you are now telling the generality of the people that they have to tighten their belts.
”As an association, PENGASSAN, we must also come up with policy statements to hold the government accountable, because government at the end of the day must cut and reduce the cost of governance because if you do not reduce the cost of governance, you will not have enough funds.
“We have seen the government of today; appointments are endless. You have a particular government as of today; they have appointed nothing less than six aides in the media alone.
“So, we think that as government, what we should be thinking of is how to shrink the cost of governance. We have 48 ministers at the moment, and some of these ministers, at the end of the day, are going to recruit aides; they are going to recruit PAs and PAs to PAs. Before you know it, that government size is going to be bloated as well.”
