Just over one third of all the 122 the government enterprise privatised between 1999 and 2012 are currently struggling for survival in the murky waters of market competition while the other 64 percent are doing well according to a statistics recently released by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). Director General of the agency, Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki said while discussing with officials of two international rating agencies in his office. He also disclosed that N251.5bn was generated from the process out of which N147 billion was remitted to the Privatisation Proceeds Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Officials of Standard and Poors and Fitch Rating were at the BPE as part of their data gathering for the 2013 Nigeria Sovereign Rating exercise and was led Richard Fox.
Dikki said government was creating an enabling environment for private sector investments in infrastructure through institution of sound policies, liberalisation and delineation of the roles of the parties, appropriate legal and regulatory framework, mitigation of risks and introduction of independent economic regulators limiting government to policy formulation, planning and technical regulation among others.
The DG who was represented by the Head, Strategic Planning, Mr. Osauzo Obaro said that the Bureau was at present working to commercialise the country’s 12 River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs), the seven national parks, the three Development Finance Institutions (DFIs)-Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BOI) and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FNBN) and the Federal Housing Authority.
Dikki recalled that the Bureau had championed cross cutting reforms in the Nigerian economy including; the Pension Reform Act 2004 which led to the establishment of the National Pension Commission and the entrenchment of a stable pension policy in Nigeria and the emergence of several Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs); Cross debt resolution, leading to the establishment of Debt Management Office (DMO) and Ports and Harbour Authorities Bill which proposes to repeal the Nigerian ports Authority Act No. 38, 1999.
