Stakeholders’ management critical in privatisation

Management of the various stakeholders was one of the greatest challenges the Federal Government had to tackle in its reform and privatisation programme, the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Ezra Dikki, has said.

Dikki identified the various stakeholders in the reform and privatization programme as labour unions, players in the sector, prospective investors, consultants/advisors and those he called ideologues.

He stressed that to have a credible and successful transaction, skillful management of the various stakeholders is required. He noted that the power sector reform and privatization was globally acclaimed to be the best because of the high degree of transparency which stakeholders observed; and that explained the absence of any controversy about the outcomes.

The BPE boss, who made the observation during an interview with Voice of Nigeria (VON) monitored in Abuja, said the management of labour issues in the power sector was more challenging but that the President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan directed and insisted that every worker of the over 47,913 staff of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) must receive every kobo of his or her entitlements.

“As a result, all the proceeds from the sale of unbundled companies of the defunct state monopoly were expended in the settlement of workers’ entitlements across the country”, he added. Dikki observed that reforms in the various sectors of the economy have generated employment as most of the privatized companies like WAPCO, Oando and the banking sector have through local and international expansion, created millions of jobs, emphasizing that “privatization creates jobs.”

He said in the last 16 years, the defunct PHCN could not employ engineers whereas, the new companies in the distribution and generation companies have employed 2,022 engineers within a space of one year.

The DG added that the transformation agenda of the President Jonathan has also started to yield results, as five to six automobile companies, including Nissan and Volkswagen, Hyundai had returned to the country as a result of the investment friendly industrial revolution policy.

He noted that past administrations could not muster the political will to enunciate policies that would encourage investment in the Automobile industry resulting in many of the companies like Steyr, Volkswagen relocating from Nigeria due to inability of past governments to protect the local assembly plants.

He said that the cardinal objective of the government should be to provide an enabling environment for the private sector investors to invest in such areas like roads and railways as it is the practice in developed economies.

Government will then face the provision of education, health and social welfare at the basic level to lay the foundation for individuals to attain their potentials. According to Dikki, “there is no alternative to reforms which allow the private sector to come in and do a better job than government would have done to transform the economy.”

On the tourism sector, he said the bureau is working on the policy and legal regulatory framework which is intended to transform Nigeria’s national parks and make the country a tourism investment destination. He noted that countries like Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe make a significant chunk of their national income from tourism, pointing out that Nigeria has more tourism destinations than those countries.

The DG said what was lacking in the country is the policy and regulatory framework that would encourage private sector investment to up-grade the national parks and make the tourism sector viable to contribute its quota to economic growth.