The transition committee of the All Progressives Congress, has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to reduce the number of federal ministries from 28 to 19, TheCable reports.

The report stated that the advisory committee, which is headed by Ahmed Joda, recommended that Buhari should appoint; 19 senior ministers and 17 ministers of state.

The report of the Joda transition committee has been submitted to Buhari since June 12, and the President is believed to be going through it, prelude to making a decision on which path to take.

Furthermore, the report by TheCable stated that some of the ministries well be merged as part of the much talked about reduction of cost of governance.

Out of the 28 ministries, only nine will still get to stand alone and they were reported to include; “(1) industry, trade and investment (2) education (3) defence (4) FCT (5) finance (6) labour and productivity (7) justice (8) foreign affairs and (9) national planning.”

According to the report, “there is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery. The US with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328 trillion (30 times Nigeria’s GDP) has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the UK has 17.”

“The current structure of the FGN with 28 ministries and 542 agencies (50 of which have no enabling laws) [results in] very high cost of governance. The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-eastern crisis.

“[There is an] apparent conflict between the desire of reducing the cost of governance through cabinet downsize and the constitutional requirement of a cabinet-level ministerial appointment from each of the 36 states of the federation.”

President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration had a total of 42 ministers, with 28 senior ministers and 14 ministers of state.