The Bureau of Public Enterprises says it has so far privatised 142 companies since being assigned the role

THE Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, has so far privatised 142 enterprises since its inception to date, Alex Okoh, director general of the agency, has revealed.

Receiving members of the House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation, led by Ahmed Yerima, its chairman, who were on an oversight visit to the Bureau in Abuja on Thursday, February 15, 2018, Okoh said out of the number, 94 enterprises had been monitored while the rest had been not because “some were either assets sale or in the first phase of privatisation and as such did not fall  within the BPE’s monitoring purview.”

He said out of the privatised enterprises, 63 percent of them are doing well while the remaining 37 percent are not performing. The DG attributed the poor performances of the non-performing enterprises to the operating business environment in the country in which many private or privatised public enterprises have either closed down or relocated to neighbouring countries.

Out of the 142 privatised enterprises, Okoh said 63 were through core investor sale, nine through guided liquidation, one through sale to existing shareholders, five through public offer and two, through liquidation. Besides, he said eight were privatised through private placement, 41 through concession, two through debt/equity swap and 11 through sale of assets.

Breaking down the enterprises by sectors, the BPE boss said, five were in the agric machanisation, eight in automobiles, seven in banking and insurance, six in brick making and six in the cement sector. The others, he listed were 10 in energy construction & services, 12 in hotels & tourism, eight in oil & gas, four in paper & packaging, 19 in solid minerals & mining, seven in steel & aluminium, four in the sugar sector, 26 in marine transport sector, 19 in power and one in telecoms.

The BPE helmsman informed the lawmakers that the bureau had commenced a thorough review of the non-performing enterprises to ascertain the issues affecting their non- performance.

He listed the new initiatives embarked upon by the agency to include; the Afam Power & Yola Distribution Company privatisation, concessioning of the Terminal B of the Warri old Port, restructuring and commercialisation of the Bank of Agriculture, BOA, partial commercialisation of NIPOST, restructuring and commercialisation of the 12 River Basin Development Authorities, RBDAs, reform and commercialisation of three of the nation’s national parks and other initiatives in the power sector.

Earlier, Yerima had said that the Committee was at the BPE to have first hand information on its activities; and to ascertain its compliance with the provisions of the 2017 Appropriation Act in line with the resolution of the House that all ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, complied with the Act.

The chairman assured that the Committee would use it legislative powers to ensure that BPE’s mandate was not usurped by the MDAs; and noted that any attempt in that direction was an infraction on the constitution of the country.

– Feb.  20, 2018 @ 12:55 GMT |