BPE Reviews Data of Failed Privatised Enterprises

Mon, Apr 25, 2016
By publisher
3 MIN READ

BREAKING NEWS, Business

– 

VINCENT Onome Akpotaire, acting director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, has revealed that the Bureau was currently reviewing the data of failed privatised enterprises in the country to ascertain their performance index to upscale them.

Akpotaire who disclosed this on Thursday, April 21, when he appeared on the Nigerian Television Authority breakfast programme-Good Morning Nigeria noted that the data on these enterprises had not been sufficient hence the need for the review.

He said it was in the realisation of the objective that his administration had decided to partner with anti-graft and security agencies in the country to carry out thorough due diligence on prospective investors willing to buy government assets.

The BPE acting boss regretted that despite the huge success the Bureau had recorded in the reform and privatisation programme of the federal government, only the failed exercises that were usually highlighted.

He listed the reforms in the banking, telecoms, Pension, petroleum services and cement companies and hotel industries as some of the reforms carried out by the Bureau which have impacted positively on the Nigerian economy but “which most Nigerians don’t give the Bureau the credit”.

On the Agricultural Sector, he said the pending reforms would create jobs for the teeming rural youth and rejuvenate the over 380,000 hectares of land for irrigation around Dams which the Federal Government had invested in but which were substantially lying fallow.

He said that the Federal Government was planning to reform the seven National Parks to become foreign exchange earner for the government in view of the dwindling revenue from oil.

Akpotaire said the Abuja Commodity Exchange would commence operations in the next nine months as soon as the Federal Government gives its nod to its privatisation. He added that the World Bank is funding the Advisory Services for the effort.

On Housing, the Acting BPE boss said the sector needs a regulator to check activities of the operators and that talks were in top gear with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing for the realization of the objective. The essence is to create a housing sector where social housing will be delivered to the teeming Nigerians through a partnership involving the Federal Government, State Governments and the private sector.

In another development, the Acting Director General has said that the power privatisation has brought to the fore the problems inherent in the sector which hitherto were ignored.

Speaking on Business Morning, a Channels Television programme on Thursday, April 21, Akpotaire said the privatization in particular had exposed the neglect in funding of the sector which led obsolete equipment and untrained manpower.

He decried the attitude of ex-workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, who picket offices of the new power owners over the non-payment of their severance benefits, saying “these owners have no business with the ex-PHCN workers as the entire money realised from the sale of the power assets was committed to pay their severance”. From the over 47,000 staff of the PHCN that were duly verified and cleared, only about 1,000 of them have not been paid and this has to do with the documentation of the affected staff” as many of them are not forthcoming with verifiable documents to aid the process.

He stated that the Bureau was making new efforts to re-engage labour to ensure that the matter was finally laid to rest.

—  Apr 25, 2016 @ 16:20 GMT

|

Tags: