Following Snazzy's footsteps, I have a few questions today.
Is Nigeria slowly being sold away, in the name of privatization?
Last week 60% of Ajaokuta Steel Company was sold to an Indian company - Global Steel Holding Limited (GSHL), Read here.
Click here to see other recent sales of public companies by The Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE).
Wouldn’t we want them back some day?
Have a wonderful day!
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12 comments:
Maybe it is a good thing that they are being sold. Most of them have served Nigeria of no use. They are just white elephant projects.
Efficiency is what people are interested in at the moment, and given that we don't have a too large pool of adequately trained Nigerians to run the places, it is better that they be sold off at the moment, and the money hopefully put to good use. The main thing remains that the industries remain on Nigerian soil. In another 30 years who knows, we could always nationalize them...
Uhm....iv got mixed feelings bout it...yeah,other countries might do a better job because they are more competent and careful to keep their corruption on the down low ;-) but then again,are we always going to have the "white man is always right" attitude and never let our own people at the helm of affairs? But for now,i agree that our industries should be run by competent people...nigerians or non-nigerians.
am with Naija vixen on dis issue...the companies should be run by anone who is competent but then the Governmnet should take a cue form the foreigners and put in place plans to train its own people so we dont have foreigners infiltrating d whole system
Privatisation isn't bad but my qualms with the whole Nigerian privatization is the lack of openness in the whole dealing. We can see the good things yhat can happen if a Government corporation is sold to the "most efficient buyer", like Nigerian Airways being sold to Virgin.
On the other hand, we can see that it does not make sense selling off the firms partially, like NITEL to Transcorp. It's been almost a year now, therehasn't been any significant improvement in NITEL.
Efficiency improvements is what privatisation looks to achieve, selling off these firms to political friends could serve to retard the whole efficiency improvement goal.
This is a continuation of the sale of Nigeria! Instead of the Nigerian government to plug in the necessary financial resources to re-vitalize these companies, upgrade the infrastructures and machineries and in the process create employments by hiring/training millions of unemployed Nigerian graduates...Obansanjo and his group of comglomerate clowns are busy plagiarizing the country's infrastructures for personal gains.
Privatization within the context it is being conducted in Nigeria is simple handing off Nigerian companies to a selected few crook politicians, who will end up handing it off to some foreign partners, who in turn will end up hiring some few Nigerians as working 'slaves' in their own countries while exporting all of the services/products outside the shores of Nigeria. This is all a FRAUD!
The Americans feared this of the Japanese about a decade ago. It will work out for Nigeria''s good, I believe.
Yes Nigeria is being sold away. There will soon be more foreigners than Nigerians one day... I am exaggerating... but Obasanjo has ruined nigeria. He is selling away homes and business without giving average Nigerians a thought. What is he doing with the money. He is not any different from his predecessors....
There are repercussions to properties being sold, look at Zimbabwe...do we want to give up that much of our properties to outside interests?
A decade ago? I do not believe there was ever a fear of privatization of American companies to the Japanese ten years ago! Americans create enabling environment for foreign companies (including the japanese, chinese, indians, etcetera) to invest and compete...
They give you tax breaks!
The dollar is still strong!
The consumers(Americans that is) are willing to pay top dollars for goods/services.
The political climate is forever stable.
There is good network of roads/power/phone/water/basic amenities, name it, etc.
Nigeria should be focusing their time and hard earned resources, building on the little they've already achieved, creating investment opportunities, rather than showcasing bad behaviours and having some
bloke sell NIGERIA PLC, collect a stipend and go sit in a corner; leaving foreigners to run our country.
It always amazes me when people speak of foreign country's as a justification of their opinion/policies (Nigerian politricksians do this all the time), without facts or detailed analysis to back it up.
Wonder if they get their news from mama Ibeji's news stand, after paying a token to scan through the newspapers!
@ Chxta
In 30 years we'll buy them back at what cost?
"Wonder if they get their news from mama Ibeji's news stand, after paying a token to scan through the newspapers!"
LOL!!
@ ALL
thanx for stopping bye.
say it with me, government does not belong in business especially in a country where all the government does is run it into the ground.
The government's job is to regulate industry, so that exploitation does not happen. As some1 said earlier it is the process of these things that stinks not privatization itself.
However these assets being handed over are not in prime condition. A lot of money is going to be spent to make them workable. That Steel plant hadn't produced any steel until the indians showed up.
You can be nationalistic and say "all foreigners out", but look what happened to Uganda when Idi Amin did that.
Privatization is not a cureall, however it is a lot better than the alternative.
Oh and America was paranoid about the Japanese buying up their country & destroying their local industry to boot but that was in the eighties. Remember the "Buy America" campaign
The fact is that in nigeria foreigners and politicans are first class citizens and then nigerians are second class. If we continue to privatise these companies to foreigners, Nigeria will get to the point whereby non-locals will be the middle/upper class, while the averages joe in nigeria will continue to wallow in poverty!
Not only are they buying up these companies, there is a steady growth of foreign workers in the country (not just in oil industry)... because these foreign companies will employ their own people to work in our country!.
I believe every country should look after its own first, before looking outside, we need to develop our own indigenous multi-national companies.
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