By Bartholomew Madukwe
LAGOS — Former Chairman of the Senate Committee on privatisation, Senator Ayo Arise, has warned that the incessant probe into the sale of some public companies to private investors and the curious recommendation to rescind such sales will be bad for the overall image of Nigeria and may in fact spell doom for its economic recovery.

Arise, who gave the warning, weekend, in Lagos said Nigeria stood to lose a lot if the global business community gets the impression that the Nigerian government could not be trusted.

Arise spoke against the background of the recommendation by the Senate Committee on Privatisation to reverse the sale of privatised companies like Daily Times of Nigeria, Transcorp Hilton and Nicon Luxury Hotel, Abuja and that the current Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, be relieved of her position.

Arise said: “Without prejudice to the position of the ad-hoc committee set up by the Senate to probe the sale of some government institutions, I wish to say that many of those companies had already been investigated and we discovered during our time that many of them were acquired in accordance with the law as rightly provided for in the 1999 Privatisation Act.

“My position all along has always been that as a government, we are supposed to be the light and our intention must be guided by the interest of the country. When we invite people to come and invest, we must be seen to be following the laws that guide such exercise. We must not be seen to be frivolous. In a situation where both the buyers and the government agencies that sold are satisfied with the processes involved during the sale, we must not be seen as a country to be reversing ourselves to the detriment of our image.”

It ‘ll be counter-productive

Arise said it would be counter-productive for the country if investors go away with the impression that the current exercise was politically motivated to target certain individuals and acquisitions. According to the Ekiti-born Senator, such impression would be bad for the Federal Government’s current drive to attract investors into the power sector.

He said: ”If any nation gives the impression that it cannot be trusted, then the repercussion will be bad. It is unimaginable that one government would privatise some public companies and another government would reverse it. These issues go beyond our country. Are we saying that an agreement signed by a particular government is no longer good enough?”

He added that if an individual or organisation had bought a company from the government, is believed to have followed due process and is seen to be running it well, then such person ought not to be hounded for emotional or political considerations.

Arise added that if it was discovered that some mistakes were made along the line, then the process could be re-examined. “If the error was committed by government agencies, then the buyer cannot be liable. What we need to be concerned with should be how the mistakes of the past should not be repeated in the future. We should be concerned about how harsh decisions of today will have very negative impacts on our business environment.”

He said although his committee in the previous Senate might have discovered that the process of privatisation may not have been perfect, but as Chairman he was guided by the need to protect the image of the country and the implication on investment drive. “We looked at the arguments very well and all the petitions. We invited the buyers and BPE as well the National Council on Privatisation and discovered that many of the companies signed ‘statute of limitation’ which means that government would stop interference at a given time.

“It should be remembered that mostly local investors responded to the privatisation bid at that time. Foreign investors were still sceptical. Our committee realised that it was important not to send the wrong signal to potential foreign investors. We realised we had to provide an enabling environment for investors, bearing in mind that the process of privatisation is never perfect in any country.

We thought if our political system was not perfect and we are trying to improve on it, the same logic can be applied to the business environment,” he stated.

The Senator said except when a clear case of impropriety or fraud could be established in the sale of any of the companies, the Senate and by extension the Executive would have to tread with caution. According to him, it was only the issue of ALSCON that appeared problematic. “In this case, as I heard, the buyers deliberately did not want to pay. That is bad. That is a clear case of contravention of the rule. A revocation of the sale may be suggested in that regard. But even at that, it still has to go to court.”

Arise expressed confidence in the leadership of the Senate to put the recommendations to debate at the plenary on Wednesday with the hope that the distinguished Senators “will put the interest of the country first during their deliberations.”

He added that although transparency and accountability should be paramount in business conduct, Nigerians are already weary of repeated probes, saying that Nigerians are bound to rise up and say ‘enough is enough’ if a similar probe is instituted on the same matter in the near future.