NISWC saved FG N400bn –Ex-chairman

Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
 
National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission (NISWC) has said that it has saved the Federal Government over N400 billion.
Speaking to Daily Sun in Abuja, the immediate past Executive Chairman of the commission, Dr Richard Egbule, told  Daily Sun that this was discovered during the  salary inspection  activity of the commission.
“It is very difficult as I sit here to say that it is this amount. I know that about two years or three years ago, we were able to save through our salary  inspection activity over N400 billion.  It is in a report which we have”, he said.
On the Steve Oronsaye report regarding the    merger of NISWC and Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission(RMAFC),  the chairman explained that although the functions of the two agencies are  wide apart from each other, RMAFC was in the constitution while NSIWC was an Act of the National Assembly. This informed the idea that NSIWC should come under RMAFC.
“When  the issue to streamline some agencies in the civil service or whether the merger of NISWC with RMAFC came up, Steve Oronsaye was of the opinion that NSIWC should be an independent entity. And he worked towards that. But in the end, the fact that RMAFC  was in the constitution and the NISWC is not but an Act of the National Assembly,  they said ok because the one  in the constitution should submerge the commission forgetting the fact that the commission represents government in all negotiations. If you are talking about salary reviews, minimum wage, salary inspection, clearing operations, it is the commission NSIWC  that does that. All the statutory functions given to it cannot  simply be abrogated like that. So, it was when all the facts were made known that government rejected that recommendation and retained NISWC”, he said .
According to him, the agencies functions cover police and paramilitary;  the intelligence community, the military,  the universities and all other tertiary institutions;  the self-funded agencies including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) , Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).