Former Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr. Chu S.P.
Okongwu has criticised the poor handling of the privatisation of the
power sector, saying that what the Federal Government actually did was
to hand over public assets to their friends in the name of
privatisation.
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard in Enugu, Okongwu also called
for the promotion of small scale industries as well as encouragement of
farmers through deliberate and favourable government policies to grow
the economy, asking the government to reduce the high interest rate on
loans for small scale industries to flourish in the country, as
according to him, politics was about transforming society from bad to
good or good to better.
“They have completely damaged the economy. This was what Obasanjo and
Abacha did or started. Look at the privatisation of PHCN. Malaysia
imported crops from Nigeria and developed her palm produce. Same thing
with the rubber imported from Nigeria. There are no rubber estates again
in Nigeria. You have now had insight into certain models of
privatisation (in Malaysia like FELDA) where farmers have 51 per cent
control, why can’t we use that as a model, same thing as Britain.
“Why is this thing, Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, being
sold to private people? Why not give labour 51 per cent ownership of
PHCN and government still retains 49 per cent. What is all these
business? It is carpet bagging: giving people’s assets to your friends.
“On the issue of metres, they have gradually jacked up the price of
renting of the metre to N700 without people knowing and they are
targeting N1000 plus. Multiply that by just one million subscribers
which of course you know are well over that and you see how many
billions they would make for doing nothing. What point does it make for
me to generate electricity when already I am making so much money and it
is just me carrying the whole thing? And it is a monopoly.
“I own it now, so why should I go into the sweat of production?
Again, thinking of what they can get from the meters; the corporate law
says that you must have a metre even if you are on solar energy or
generator.
“It is just like in townships, whether you get water or not, you must
pay for it. How does that encourage people to produce? It is rent and
that is why I said that I will go deeper into it later because the main
instrument of control or compensation is rent. You can say that Okongwu
said that they are not going anywhere.”
