By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) said it is not responsible for the sale of Federal Government’s landed property in the country, Director General of the nation’s privatisation agency; Mr. Alex A. Okoh has clarified.
Appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Mr. Oluwole Oke on Tuesday, August 11, 2020, the Director General said in line with the core mandate of the Bureau, it is only responsible for reforms, privatisation, commercialization/ concessioning.
He said so far, 149 enterprises have been reformed, privatised or commercialised/concessioned by the agency and the proceeds of such reform projects are deposited in the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federal Government.
The Director General’s appearance before the Committee was sequel to its summons for the DG to appear to respond to a petition by the Transparent Extractive Sector Operators Initiative concerning the activities of the Implementation Committee of the White paper on the Commission on Inquiry into the Alienation and sale of Federal Government Landed Property which is not the purview of the BPE.
Okoh informed the Committee that the method of sale of the Federal Government assets undertaken by the Bureau included core investor sale, share floatation, liquidation, public offers, asset sale, Debt/Equity Swap and Guided Liquidation amongst others.
Realizing that the Bureau was invited in error before the Committee, it unanimously resolved that the Bureau should submit to the Committee, a list of the proceeds of its privatization/enterprise reform activities its audited account from 2014-2018.
According to a statement by the Head of Public Communications, Mrs Amina Othman on Wednesday, the Director General disclosed that the schedule of proceeds of privatisation would be tendered on Thursday, August 13, 2020.
