Huge cost of servicing new loans amid poor revenue informed the Federal Government’s decision to dispose of 10 state-owned assets to select investors and the public between now and year end, in order to fund the 2018 fiscal plan.This clarification was given by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, and her counterpart in the Budget and National Planning Ministry, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, who also argued that borrowings and the assets sale not only constituted strategic actions to funding the 2018 budget, but were in the overall interest of the country.
In the sale of the 10 ailing key national assets, two of which must be sold this month (Nicon Insurance Limited and Skyway Aviation Handling Co), the government is expected to earn the sum of $797m, that is N289b. A Director at the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Joe Anichebe, who revealed government’s plan to sell the outfits, informed that the privatisation agency had pledged to raise N306b to help finance the planned spending.
Apart from the Ajaokuta Steel Complex, which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele equally identified as one of the assets penciled for disposal, other firms that are up for sale are in the power, aviation and insurance sectors.Earlier in July this year, the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Alex A. Okoh, also informed that some entities had been prepared for privatisation or for commercialisation. The Guardian
Pix: President Muhammed Buhari
