 Welcome back. We have more conversations before we say goodbye this morning and in a bit to prevent the nation from imminent economic collapse. The United Kingdom Governors have advised the federal government to retire all federal civil servants who are older than 50 years. That's right. The governors also want the government to raise taxes across the board as well as levy anyone earning 30,000 Naira and above monthly. The governors made the proposal at a meeting with President Mohamed Buhari in July, an online publication Premium Times exclusively gathered from sources privy to the details of the meeting. The proposal also urges the government to regain implementation of a updated Stephen Rossier report, which suggested merger and shutdown of agencies and power statels with duplicated or contested functions as a way to address bureaucratic inefficiency and reduce the cost of governance. Now, it's such a more feasible and in the interest of all concerning, more importantly in the overall interests of the country, I will have joined us to discuss this, Joe Fermi Dagonro. He is a chief strategist with Westphalia Resources in Ligas. Joe Fermi Dagonro, good morning to you. Thank you very much for your time. All right. The Stephen Rossier report has been on the shelf. Let's call it that, an asterisk for some time now. And it's interesting to see that the governors are saying to Mr. President, let's simply mend this report. This is a report that talks about making government leaner and more efficient. People have said in the times past that government needs to get leaner and efficient. And probably they are saying now that these difficulties are good because it's going to force government to be about governance and about how much people can make. Are you of that school of thought, looking at the glass right now as half full, that at least there's not enough money to go around and people are being forced to do the right thing and to think out of the box? Can you conclude me with that question that I can bring to you? All right. Is there a bright aspect, a positive aspect to the economic downturn and the gloom in the economy as we speak? And with government being forced to look at how it can become more efficient, we hear that the governors are telling the president to implement the Stephen or Rossier report, which looks at making government smaller, leaner and more efficient, you know, by collapsing some ministries, merging other ministries so that we have fewer ministries and government can be more efficient. So is this at least a positive aspect of this ongoing economic issue we have in that government is now being forced to think about how it can become more efficient? Yes. First of all, I think we have to understand that we have so many ministries that agents. And some of the work that they develop into, and we've done it before, it's more ministries that are going to be efficient. So I support the fact that we have to trim down the very characteristics and begin to look at efficient ways. It doesn't really matter whether you have one minute, two minutes, please. It depends on the people, on the leadership of the ministry, on the leadership of the government. So just trimming down the number of employees or number of citizens will not only make them more efficient. It depends on the system and the people who are in the system. So we have to clarify that the first thing is trimming the system. The second is who are the people who are going to leave the field of leadership. So we have to begin to have that orientation. The orientation of the people who must be there, unless you begin to have that. Otherwise, we will trim down. So maybe one of the employees and we are still not just the best. That's number one. And we have to trim down the number of employees. And you see, it's only in this point that you hear most of the workers. People, those workers have to leave the field. People, those workers have to leave the field. There's something wrong. All right. All right. Slow down. We have to do something. Okay. I mean, some Nigerians have called for the governance and politics of the country to be made so unattractive financially so that people only go there to think about how to make things better. In different times, you know, in different parts of the world, including Nigeria, whenever it comes to laying people off, labor is always up in arms as regards studies. It's viewed as not, it's not viewed in good light because people would definitely lose their jobs and their source of livelihoods. We know the retirement age is above 50. Is this a move that will be in the benefit of everyone concerned and will it pay off at the end of the day? All right. Sometimes it's not really funny. When you think of having people at the age of 50, a car, if it's going to be in a car, and somebody in the field, maybe he cannot do his job, you know, efficient, any longer, people will be there. You know, families are going to be retired, but I think the government cannot just make people retire or to make them retire, the world is no better. In general, in terms of the specifics of the country that I know, and, you see, they have this kind of system whereby you can retire early. But returning early does not mean that you will not have all your money and you will still not be rich. As long as you have an agency that makes money, and when you retire early, you're still using the day-to-day system to do something, you know, with bigger capacity. And to send some of the people outside the country in order to change their impact in all of this and they are paid for. So I don't know whether we have that system in this country, but in 50 years old, not a woman, it's very ideal to do this now. I mean, in most countries now, there isn't a change in their employment which is 55 per cent, because people are living longer and they are more active. So if we want to reduce the number of staff, the number of employees, it should not be because of their age. A lot of other things have to be considered. I see that. Why do we have the money to pay the debt, to pay the pension? Because I mean, if we retire at the age of 50 and we're 50 to 80 or 90, then the government has to pay this question for 50 years. I mean, we have to put a lot of money into participation. So I'm not supporting that idea if at all, because I'm paying debt to the population, if at all, the government is running that. At the city level in this country, I'm not supporting that because having seen what's built around in other countries, I mean, we're biased, you know, and I think it is not right for any government to do that, it's not right. And I think the government should not do that, that's not it. All right. We have to leave it at that. I'm basically apologised for the connection issues there earlier. Joe Fermi Dagunro, who is the Chief Strategist with Westphalia Resources in Lagos, Nigeria. Sir, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. All right, it's an interesting conversation that we'll continue to have as the economic issues continue to unfold. That's the size of a package right here on the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. My name is Kofi Bartels. Please follow us across our social media platforms on Plus TV Africa. We're back tomorrow with more on this program. Good morning.