Alex Okoh, Director General BPE

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has through privatisation generated N135 billion out of the N220 billion target expected from it for the funding of 2019 fiscal budget.

The Director General of the privatisation agency, Mr. Alex A. Okoh, made this disclosure while speaking at an interactive forum with the Senate Committee on Privatisation at the National Assembly.

The Director General said the Bureau is expected to contribute the N220 billion in line with the Medium-Term Framework submitted by the Federal Government to the National Assembly for 2019 budget.

He explained that the N135bn was generated through the sale of the Afam Electricity Generation Company (Afam Power Plc and Afam Three Fast Power Limited), re-privatisation of the Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) and sale of 29 percent Federal Government’s  shares in the Geregu Power plant.

Okoh while calling on the National Assembly to critically look at the funding framework for the Bureau, expressed optimism that BPE would meet its target for the 2020 fiscal budget.

He regretted that out of the N2bn allocated to the Bureau yearly from the national purse for its operations, N1.5bn is for staff emoluments through the Integrated Pay role and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and “of the N500m that is supposed to come to the Bureau for overheads and capital expenditure, only about 15 percent of the amount is eventually released to the Bureau against what is obtained in other revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government”.

The Director General advised the Federal government to give consideration to the privatisation of federal government-owned enterprises to fund the N10.33trillion 2020 budget, with a total deficit of N2.28trillion and decried a situation where the state-owned enterprises place an undue pressure on the lean public purse by way of subventions.

He noted that there was no justification for the ritual of yearly budget deficit with local and external borrowings when there were national assets that could be converted into liquidity to fund the government’s fiscal programmes.

“It is not good to keep borrowing on a yearly basis to finance deficit budget when a lot of very valuable national assets are lying fallow and moribund. Proceeds from outright privatisation or concession of the moribund assets, should serve as veritable sources in funding the  budget since the assets are more or less, becoming national liabilities”, he added.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Privatisation, Chief Theodore Orji had reiterated  the importance of privatisation as the key driver of the Nigerian economy and pledged the support of the Committee to the Bureau.