Sale of firms yields N1 trillion

The sale of 132 enterprises under the federal government's privatisation programme since 2001 has fetched gross revenue of almost N1 trillion.

Christopher Anyanwu, Director General, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), told a privatisation support project (PSP) stakeholders' workshop in Abuja that about 55 public enterprises were privatised through initial public offer (IPO) between 1989 and 1994, while only 17 were privatised after 1999, with the assistance of the United States Agency for Infrastructure Development (USAID) and the Spanish Government.

Mr. Anyanwu who said the workshop was to give the privatisation agency the opportunity to evaluate the support of the World Bank, which is winding up its operations by the end of next month, warned against handing over highly technical jobs in the country to foreign investors to encourage development of indigenous skills in these areas. The Privatisation Support Programme, is a World Bank inititiave to support privatisation projects in developing countries. The programme began in September 2001 and will end this December.

PSP as vehicle for development

The support programme, he said, facilitated the BPE's effort to produce a new National Telecoms Policy in 2002; ensure the passage of an investor-friendly Telecommunications Act in 2003; enabled the issuance of global system for mobile (GSM) and fixed wireless telecommunication licences; laid the foundation for a telecommunications revolution in Nigeria, and helped in the production of draft sector review for the Nigeria Postal Services in 2004, which is awaiting enactment into law.

Condemning some aspects of the PSP agreement allowing the use of consultants to perform certain specialised tasks under the privatisation programme, Mr. Anyanwu argued that it would have impacted positively on the knowledge of other staff if the BPE was allowed to employ highly skilled workers to handle such tasks.

He cited the example of Ajaokuta Steel Company, which management he said should have been handed over to Nigerian investors to use competent skills to revive the plant rather than insisting on foreigners who ended up not able to turn the fortunes of the project around over the years.

The workshop provided the BPE the forum to not only appraise Nigeria's partnership with the World Bank in the last eight years, but also review project implementation against key performance indicators, access project outcomes against deliverables agreed to during project extensions, as well as identify gaps, constraints and challenges in subsequent projects.