Bismarck Rewane, the chief
executive of Financial Derivative, says Atiku Abubakar, the presidential
candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), must tell Nigerians, who he is
planning to sell the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to.
The Atiku policy document,
released on Monday, highlights that the presidential candidate is seeking
partial privatisation of the NNPC, regarded as Nigeria’s cash cow.
Reacting to the specific idea of
privatising the NNPC, Rewane said the idea is a noble one, but Atiku must tell
Nigerians who he plans to sell to, else he may plunge the country into chronic
capitalism.
“I agree that he (Atiku) should
privatise, but selling to who?” Rewane said in his response to a question by
Channels TV business editor, Boason Omofaye.
“You must not just say you are
going to sell, you must tell us how, and to who?
“If you are going to have a
voucher system like they have in India, where everybody in the public will have
a voucher, then you can sell it.
“It becomes rather than
government owned, it becomes Nigerian privately-owned, and part of it you want
to internationalise like what Saudi Arabia is doing.
“But you see, it is a noble idea,
but it stops short of the specifics, tell us who and who, and how you are going
to ensure that it is not sold to your own cronies.
“One of the big risks of
privatisation is the Russian model, where you have chronic capitalism. If you
have businessmen, who are in government like Donald Trump, you want to make
sure that both the government and the people are protected from conflicts of
interest.”
ON THE NEXT LEVEL
Rewane said he likes the fact
that the Buhari administration wants to take Nigeria to the next level, and
that policy documents are out more than 100 days before elections.
The Associate of the Institute of
Bankers, England and Wales, also said he likes what the president is saying
about his plans, but the presidential candidates need to debate.
He said the biggest problem he
sees in the next level document is that it has not come out to say ‘we would
sell those refineries’, remove subsidies, so we have a free market economy.
He added that there is nothing
wrong with having a billionaire or a poor man in the office of the president,
that what Nigeria needs is a leader with a vision, leaders who can deal with
structural rigidity.
He said neither the Atiku nor the
Muhammadu Buhari programme speaks on how to increase Nigeria’s labour
productivity, considering the population growth.
The financial analyst, with over
40 years experience, said Buhari, Atiku have shown us “the what” they will do,
but not “the how” they would do it.
He said both teams must deal with
labour productivity, inflation, current recessionary gap, unemployment, and
Nigeria’s excruciating debt service burden.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com