By CHRIS OCHAYI

ABUJA – The Federal Government has assured consumers of power that that electricity generation will improve over the next few months, as the new owners of the privatised successor companies will introduce maintenance culture that ensure steady power supply.

The Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, who said this in his presentation to the Course 22 of the National Defence Academy, in Abuja. He added that the new owners will embark on the importation of spare parts to replace and refurbish the moribund components.

In a paper entitled, “The Federal Government Privatisation Programme: The Journey So Far,” Dikki disclosed that the major work of the Bureau was the reforms of the various sectors of the economy to create an enabling environment for private sector investments.

He said the agency, instituted sound sector policies; liberalisation of the sectors by abrogating monopoly laws; and delineation of the roles of policy formulation from regulation and operations. Others are the establishment of appropriate legal and regulatory framework; mitigation of risks to encourage private sector investments and the setting up of independent regulatory agencies.

He noted that the BPE championed the Telecommunications Sector Reforms that revolutionalised the country’s telecom sector with the enactment of the Telecom Act of 2003.

According to him, this led to the licensing of several service providers that have created many new jobs and an astronomical growth from a tele-density of 0.4%, representing 450,000 telephone lines in 2001, to 82%, representing 123 million telephone lines as at June 2013.

Dikki argued that the BPE midwife the enactment of the Pension Reform Act of 2004 that led to the establishment of National Pension Commission, which entrenched a stable pension policy in Nigeria. Through the Commission, retirees are now certain to get paid on retirement which has so far created over N3 trillion long term investable funds for infrastructure development – if the restrictions of the law are relaxed.

He explained that the establishment of the Debt Management Office (DMO) is one of the outcomes of the reform works of the Bureau to curb arbitrary borrowing by public enterprises and government agencies.

He enumerated the primary benefits of the Ports Reforms by the BPE on the economy to include faster ship turn-around time; faster cargo turn-around time; and faster truck turn-around time. Others are use of larger ships; increased port utilisation efficiency; lower port operating costs and opportunities for inland distribution by rail.

The secondary benefits according to him are increased competition; lower port charges; lower freight rates; increased private sector investments; labour force improvements and net financial transfers to the government.

To sustain the gains of past reforms, Dikki listed seven critical Bills targeted for passage into Law, which have been approved by the National Council on Privatisation for presentation to the Federal Executive Council, FEC.