By MICHEAL EBOH
The Federal Government has disclosed that it will commence the
privatisation of the country’s refineries and concessioning of pipelines and
depots immediately the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is passed into law.
The Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE,
Mr. Benjamin Dikki disclosed this when the Thailand Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr.
Chailert Limsomboon paid him a courtesy visit at his office in Abuja.
This is a reversal of its earlier decision to go ahead with the
sale of the refineries despite the non-passage of the PIB.
Considering that the PIB has gone through two legislative
sessions without being passed, it is uncertain the bill will survive the
current session in view of the controversies surrounding some of its
provisions, a situation that would have kept the bill at the National Assembly
for more than 12 years.
But Dikki assured that the BPE is currently concentrating on
perfecting the legal and regulatory framework for all the sectors of the
economy to create the enabling environment for private sector participation.
According to him, the purpose of the review of the legal and
regulatory frameworks was to aggregate the regulatory powers currently
dispersed in various agencies in each sector into one sector regulator and
separate policy from regulation.
Dikki also highlighted the huge potential in the transport
sector, noting that Nigeria has over 193,000 kilometers of federal roads which
provides opportunities for potential road concessionaires.
He said that fifteen out of the seventeen successor companies
created out of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, are fully in the hands
of the private sector while the remaining two are at the concluding stages for
handover to the private sector.
He, however, noted that the Transmission Company of Nigeria,
TCN, would continue to reside with the Federal Government.
In his own comment, the Thailand Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr.
Chailert Limsomboon, disclosed that his country has made economic cooperation
with Nigeria the high point of its new Africa Initiative.
Limsomboon noted that in the past, Thailand had not paid enough
attention to the economic opportunities in the West Africa sub-region,
particularly Nigeria, saying, “Hope we have not missed the train in the Nigeria
privatisation programme.”
He pointed out that, while in Nigeria, he would make exploration
of business opportunities and expansion of economic cooperation with Nigeria a
priority.
He said the purpose of the visit was to learn about the reform
and privatisation policy in Nigeria and the new growth sectors to properly
sensitise the Thai business communities that may be interested in investing in
Nigeria.
The BPE had last year announced plans to privatise the four
refineries in the country next year, as part of ongoing reforms in oil and gas
sector.
Spokesperson for the BPE, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, had disclosed
that the privatisation would be handled in line with the usual strategy of the
BPE, which was to sell a certain percentage of shares and reserve a certain
percentage for the workers, host communities and Nigerians.
Anichebe, however, explained that the privatisation plans were
currently at the preliminary stage, where the blueprint of the policy would be
decided.
- See more at:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/07/fg-commence-refineries-sale-pib-passage/#sthash.kvMUSFtr.dpuf
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