BPE Inaugurates Four Committees To Address Complexities And Challenges Of Privatised Enterprises

The Bureau of Public Enterprises has established four committees to canvass policy ideas for revitalising ailing public enterprises that had been privatised for over 10 years.

Head, Public Communications at BPE, Amina Othman, disclosed this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja.

Othman said that the committees were established to realise the agency’s determination to ensure that privatised enterprises in the country provided dividends to the citizenry in line with the privatisation policy of the Federal Government.

The committees are expected to come up with a mechanism for addressing the complexities and challenges hindering the growth and development of some privatised enterprises in the country which were handed over to the core investors over 10 years ago.

The committees are also to provide policymakers with further insight into the practical realities facing the sectors in which the enterprises were privatised and proffer credible solutions to addressing the problems.

The committees are on the housing sector (the bricks and clay), mines and steel development, oil palm and automobiles. The fifth committee on paper mills had earlier been inaugurated.

Inaugurating the committees in Abuja on Thursday, Director General of BPE, Mr Alex Okoh, recalled that the National Council on Privatisation had at its meeting of April 12, 2018, reviewed the performances of some privatised enterprises in the past 10 years and observed that they occupied a strategic place in the nation’s economy but had remained suboptimal since privatisation.

Okoh said the NCP also took into cognisance the need to resuscitate and reposition the enterprises in order to enhance their market value and their overall contribution to the economy.

Consequently, he added, the NCP directed its secretariat, the (BPE), to organise an Enterprise Stakeholders/Investors Forum with the objective of creating a platform where the core investors of the privatised enterprises, potential investors and relevant MDAs would meet and chart a way forward.

He said that the objective was in consonance with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Federal Government.

The BPE boss noted that it had been the custom of the bureau to engage stakeholders in its programme design and execution in order to solicit their cooperation, support and participation for the success of the privatisation programme and the Nigerian economy.

Okoh urged members of the committees to work hard and submit their report within 90 working days’ timeline.

Membership of the committees was drawn from the relevant sectors, ministries, BPE and the private sector.

Source: Punch