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 Daily Independent Online.
* Monday, July 26, 2004.
Reconstitution of
the National Council on Privatisation
Viewed against the
backdrop of the World Bank’s poor rating of the Bureau of Public
Enterprises (BPE) and The Presidency’s spirited efforts in March to amend
the Public Enterprises (Commercialisation and Privatisation) Act, 1999,
the reappointment of Vice President Atiku Abubakar as National Council on
Privatisation (NCP) Chairman imposes a burden of justification on
Government. This is of particular importance to Nigerians who have
watched disconcertingly as public sector assets valued at over United
States $100 billion were being literally auctioned in utter disregard of
advertised objectives.
In a study on privatisation,
released in Washington, D.C. on June 14, the World Bank revealed that
public sector divestment in Nigeria had been slipshod and utterly
unsatisfactory and that the country has only drawn down $21.59 million or
18.9 per cent of a $114.29 million Special Account it (World Bank)
dedicated to the privatisation programme in June 2001. That, it surmised,
was reflective of the absence of steam and deviation from guidelines for
the exercise. Nigeria, the Bank revealed, has been paying commitment
charges that now total $2,571,525 million, in consequence of the failure
to utilise the aforesaid facility. It was a damning verdict.
The Federal Government, as if
actuated by the same perception of the BPE, had moved in March to have
the National Assembly amend the enabling Act, ostensibly to overhaul the
implementation agency and firm the privatisation drive. Vice President
Abubakar’s statutary right to the chairmanship of the NCP was evidently
the main object of the review. And that was hardly surprising as the
role(s) of the Vice President had, since his inauguration in 1999,
persistently fuelled scandalous speculations as assets in key sub-sectors
such as petroleum products marketing and banking were disposed of.
After the amendment (Section
8(3) of the presidential bill), secured after a Senate plenary session on
March 23 upturned the recommendations of the Senate Committee on
Privatisation, the Vice President ceased to belong to the NCP. The
Section reads in part: “The chairman shall be a person from either the
public service or private sector and who by reason of his ability,
experience or specialised knowledge of fiscal, corporate industrial or
economic matter or business or professional attainments would in the
President’s opinion be capable of achieving the objectives of the
council. The headlines in all notable dailies on March 24 were emphatic,
“Atiku dropped as NCP chairman.”
That piece of legislation was
deemed to be a preliminary step in the effort to re-focus the NCP for
productive performance. Under Phase One of the privatisation programme,
regrettably, the only lap covered since 1999, Nigerians witnessed the
sale of African Petroleum Plc, National Oil and Chemical Marketing Plc,
Unipetrol Plc, all to bidders without the requisite technical competence
and experience in petroleum retail activities. Similar lapses and
controversies dogged transactions concerning the cement companies (West
Afric an Portland Cement Co. Plc, Ashaka Cem Plc Benue Cement Plc Benue
Cement Plc, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc, etc) and financial
institutions (FSB International Bank Plc, NAL Merchant Bank Plc, etc).
Progression into Phase Two was marked by even worse irregularities, as
experienced in the abortive cases of NICON HILTON Hotel, NICON Insurance
Corporation, Nigeria Airways Limited and even Nigerdock Limited.
Aside from cases of deliberate
under-valuation of assets and fraudulent acquisitions by key public
functionaries (through agents), there were incontrovertible facts from
the Central Bank of Nigeria pointing to diversion of privatisation
proceeds by BPE in collusion with The Presidency. As of December 2002,
about N44 billion had been so misappropriated. We challenge the NCP, BPE and
The Presidency to publish all accounts relating to transactions in the
privatisation exercise. The objective of empowering the citizenry through
participation in the acquisition of assets was also defeated as the NCP
could not make the planned Share Purchase Fund available until very late
in the day. Besides these failings, it is known that neither the NCP nor
its implementation arm, the BPE, has yet to carry out the mandatory
post-privatisation assessment of the performance of affected enterprises.
It is in the light of these
crippling inadequacies that we lament the re-appointment of Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar as Chairman of the NCP. Nigeria has lost everything it set out
to achieve under the privatisation programme. Nothing of enhanced
productivity nor
market efficiency has been
attained to date, all because Alhaji Abubakar and his aides at the BPE
chose to deviate from the stipulations of the enabling Act. We believe
that his re-appointment could still be reversed and fresh hands with the
requisite competence and integrity appointed to steer the programme in
the desired direction. It is one vital way to generate confidence and
optimism in the programme. But beyond that, Government must act to
improve the home front - ensure good governance; promote the rule of law
and discard all anti-people policies that create so much disenchantment
and tension in the land.
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