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The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), in the last two years, raked over N500 billion from the privatisation exercise. This was got from 61 transactions completed between 2005 and 2006.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), in the last two years, raked over N500 billion from the privatisation exercise. This was got from 61 transactions completed between 2005 and 2006.
The Director General of BPE, Mrs Irene Nkechi Chigbue, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja at a press briefing organised to mark the second anniversary of the bureau under her leadership.
According to the director general, the money generated from the sales of public enterprises under the period has helped to reduce the hemorrhage of government funds through losses and unproductive investments.
"These resources have now been released to help our government provide vital services that will improve the lives of all Nigerians," she explained.
Giving details of the privatisation exercise since the inception of the present administration, she stated that the BPE has privatised 81 enterprises.
She also disclosed that from 1999 to two years ago when she assumed duty as the director general of the BPE, the bureau saw to the financial closure of 19 enterprises as at the end of 2004.
"In the rest of 2005, we were able to privatise a further 46 enterprises. In 2006, we were able to privatise 38 enterprises," she added, saying that privatizations do not happen overnight.
Mrs Chigbue, however, said that 2005 and 2006 were the years of great progress for BPE with the completion of the privatisation of the 61 enterprises.
Specifically, she said that in 2005, the concessioning of 18 port terminals, comprising the Apapa, Tin Can Island and Calabar terminals stood out in the transactions handled in the year, adding, however, that most of the notable achievements in 2005 were not only transactions.
The BPE boss said that the bureau has the fourth phase of Nigeria's privatisation programme, which will see to the sale of major utilities and infrastructure enterprises.
She noted that the enactment of the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act, the successful unbundling and incorporation of 17 successor companies out of PHCN and the establishment of the Nigeria Electric Regulatory Commission (NERC) in 2005 have set the framework and paved the way for the forthcoming privatisation of the electricity sector.
For 2006, she said that the successful privatisation of NITEL was the key achievement of the year.
Said Chigbue "The outcome rates as one of the best on record for Nigeria and its people based on the objectives attained. Like all Nigeria's public enterprises, NITEL was set up as a state enterprise in the honest belief that this was the best way that the government of Nigeria could ensure a good service would be provided.
"But NITEL, like nearly all public enterprises, fell victim to corruption, inefficiency, nepotism and decay which made it impossible for it to meet its obligations to its owners, workers, creditors, customers and suppliers," she pointed out.
She also disclosed that the government, had between 1975 and 1998, spent close to N13 trillion in setting up and maintaining about 590 public enterprises out of which 160 were in the business of selling goods and services and, therefore, expected to make profit.
"The profit turned out to be minuscule: about a half of one per cent," she lamented, adding that the government funds were tied up in businesses that supported just 420,000 workers out of a 130 million population.
She regretted that the enterprises absorbed over half of the money that the country earned from huge oil sales in the early 1970s just as they accounted for over half of the money the country owed as foreign debt.