The Federal Government has resolved to concession four stadia across the country, National Arts Theatre and Tafawa Balewa Square in 2021.
The stadia are: National Stadium, Lagos; Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja; Jos International Stadium, Plateau State; and Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt.
The government has also decided to commercialise all the River Basin Development Authorities and sell off the Nigeria Integrated Power Projects in Omotosho, Geregu and Calabar to core investors.
The Federal Government’s plan was contained in the details of the 2021 Budget of the Bureau of Public Enterprises submitted to the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation on Thursday.
This was even as the Committee queried the Director General of the BPE, Alex Okoh, over the collection of N1 billion from the Ministry of Finance to finance Afam and Geregu power plants without appropriation.
The Committee has also demanded for investigation into the sale of Afam and Geregu power plants to ensure that the country was not shortchanged in the transactions.
Speaking on behalf of the Committee, Senator Theodore Orji said: “Our observations on year 2019 BPE Budget performance and year 2020 Appropriation: BPE DG obtained N1 billion life line from Federal Ministry of Finance to finance BPE 2019 transactions, including: Afam Power Plant, Geregu Power Plant, etc without appropriation.
“We also found that in Geregu Power Plant, the core investor already owned 51 per cent shares and that the transaction emanated from a request by the investor for additional 29 per cent of FGN residual 49 per cent shares.
“There was no competition and only BPE and their appointed transaction advisers know how the value was determined and sold for N13 billion.
“Afam Power Plant: It was mentioned that there are actually two different power plants, that is Afam Power Plant and Afam fast power (a brand new plant) built by Seimen, yet to be commissioned.
“Reports have it that it cost about $1 million to build a megawatt of power plant.
“There is need to investigate these transactions properly to ensure that Nigerians are not shortchanged in the transactions.
“We are also concerned with the recent exit of Transcorp Hilton from post-privatisation Monitoring by NCP on the recommendation of the BPE, knowing fully well that even though BPE was on the board because we had 49 per cent, today our shares have been diluted to 11 per cent, failing to take up the shares when right issue was done even though the core investor failed to comply with and implement its covenants with Post Acquisition Plan and development plan within five years.
“And the Senate and the House during the 7th National Assembly recommended recursion of the Agreement in line with the provisions of the Share Sale Purchase Agreement.
“The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee was chaired by the Present Senate President, Distinguished Senator Ahmad Lawal (Yobe State).
“My submission, Distinguished, is that we ask the DG BPE to provide us with all copies of the agreements, correspondences, minutes of meetings, reports and NCP approvals to enable us review them before we take any action in the national interest.”
Responding to the state of commercialised government enterprises, the Director General of BPE said over 262 government enterprises have been sold in the past 30 years.
OKoh added that only 25 per cent out of 100 per cent of the enterprises are not performing as at present, promising to submit the monitoring and assessment of the government privatised companies to the committee.
The Director General of BPE vowed to make available all the documents requested by the Committee.