Kunle Aderinokun
19 November 2008
Abuja — Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mrs Irene Chigbue, said yesterday that the 20 government agencies at the nation's ports should be blamed for congestion, not terminal operators.
Chigbue said this at at a two-day World Bank Privatisation Support Project (PSP) Stakeholders Workshop in Abuja, adding that BPE had undertaken a study tour of successful ports in other climes and discovered that there was no country with such plethora of agencies at the ports.
Reviewing work of the Bureau during the last eight years of the PSP, she said it was a good journey that has been immensely beneficial to the privatisation programme and the country at large.
"The programme has achieved many of its set goals and has effectively brought both financial and institutional support to key agencies that were charged with implementing various government programmes.
"At this point in the life of the PSP, when most of the key performance indicators are clearly on track, it is appropriate to reinvigorate the process through a reassessment and prioritisation of the intervention necessary to consolidate on achievements made so far.
"It is the primary intention of this workshop to achieve this. In addition, the workshop will provide opportunity for stakeholders to buy into the Key Performance Indicators expected for consolidation of the PSP achievements and present these and other 'capacity-building agenda' to the Federal Government PSP Oversight Committee, obtain feedback and confirm targets over the next 12 months," she said.
She said foundation work for government to embrace Public-Private Partnership (PPP) was done by the privatisation agency. "We are excited because if the groundwork was not done, we cannot talk of PPP. No investor will partner with the public sector if they did not see the legal/regulatory framework," she said.
Chigbue said apart from transactions, BPE contribution were in the various policies, in telecommunications, power, industry, transport, oil and gas, that the Bureau midwifed and the various Bills which the organisation drafted, saying "it is not easy to quantify these policies and Bills."
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