Assets sale: Make haste slowly

It’s quite clear now that the federal government is determined to sell some national assets to use the proceeds to reflate the economy that has fallen into recession. This can be gathered from the endorsement of the proposal by the National Economic Council (NEC) and the support leading businessmen are lending to the decision. The […]

It’s quite clear now that the federal government is determined to sell some national assets to use the proceeds to reflate the economy that has fallen into recession.
This can be gathered from the endorsement of the proposal by the National Economic Council (NEC) and the support leading businessmen are lending to the decision. The only question now is which national assets should go on the block. The Buhari administration must be mindful of the fact that Nigerians are quite opposed to this policy course because they do not think there has been diligent search for alternative sources of funding – or if there has been they have not been apprised of it. Communication with the public is most important at times like these.
The public view of the stand of both NEC and the business class on issue of assets sale is that they are partisan in the sense that governors who form the bulk of NEC membership are interested in the immediate benefit of increased revenues and the other group looks to make rich pickings if and when the sale takes place. Assets disposal under current circumstances will be hastily undertaken – what experts call forced sale in which assets will most likely be undervalued. There is an element of sophistry in the “assurance” that government will include a buy-back clause in such transactions. Diligent follow up is not a forte of Nigerian bureaucracy.
Nigeria’s economy has long been liberalised, beginning with the privatisation and commercialization programme of the Babangida administration all the way to those of the Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations. The results of these exercises are disappointing; only in the cement sector has national self-suffiency been achieved, most of the privatised enterprises have simply disappeared. The privatised NAFCON, for example, should have relieved Nigeria of the burden of fertiliser importation, which it does not seem to have done.
Experts opine that assets sale will take a year or so to scale legal and commercial hurdles to completion. If this scenario is indeed true government should have recourse to international agencies like the World Bank and IMF for emergency funding to cover our needs. Even at that, the use to which the external funds will be put should be made known to Nigerians because too often in the past foreign loans had disappeared, not spent on the projects they were contracted for. As for Nigerian industrialists looking to snap up national assets once again, they should rather through the liberalised economy like Aliko Dangote and prepare to take up the slack by investing in areas like the moribund LNG projects at Brass and Olokola.
In tandem with the quest for external funding, president Buhari must move decisively against the profligacy and waste that abound in government operations. The MDAs, the legislature and the judiciary are all afflicted. Humongous sums are spent in every budget cycle in acquiring vehicles and IT equipment for example, the former despite the extant monetisation policy. Foreign travel by government officials must be severely curbed as well as the size of official delegations. The presidential air fleet must be reduced to two or three aircraft. The Change campaign has to produce such exemplary steps to draw the public to its fold.
President Buhari should use the opportunity of this crisis to remove from the national budget constituency projects promoted by members of the National Assembly.
These projects are primarily in the domain of state and local governments to deliver – classroom blocks, clinics, boreholes, village roads and street lights, etc. Any tier of government that cannot provide these has no right to exist. There is also the need to disaggregate the National Assembly budget in order to remove the padding that enables members to collect “running costs” in millions, as divulged by Honourable Jibril in his running battle with his colleagues.
The times require hard and pragmatic decisions and equally hard campaign for the public to accept the sacrifice necessary to combat the economic challenges the country is facing.
M.T. Usman, Kaduna