The federal government has concluded a list of national assets and organisations to be listed in the capital market to raise revenue to partly finance the 2024 national budget.
Topping the list as reliably gathered: Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited, Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation, National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON Insurance), and Nigerian Machine Tools in Oshogbo.
The assets will be listed in the capital market within the first quarter of 2024 as part of the government’s special purpose investment vehicle in line with its economic liberalisation principle.
The federal government expects to generate N298.4bn from the planned sale of some national assets under the 2024 national budget, a target Mr Alexander Ayoola Okoh, director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), would be surpassed. “We will exceed the target,” the DG said on Monday, shortly after the National Council on Privatisation inauguration in Abuja.
The DG (BPE) said the idea is to allow private investors to co-own the assets while raising government revenue aside from the expected job and wealth creation.
Some assets that were privatised in 2005 have been mismanaged by private investors. Okoh had lamented the decay at the NICON Insurance, one of Nigeria’s bad cases of privatisation.
Managing director of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), Dr Armstrong Takang, disclosed the government’s readiness to identify, revive, and list the moribund government assets on the stock exchanges in the country for enhanced economic growth.
The BPE boss believes that the government should tap into the private sector’s economic potential, which he said can play a dominant role in the current administration’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’.
He expressed excitement that President Bola Tinubu is already engaging foreign investors for opportunities in Nigeria. “For us, it’s the way to go. We can’t borrow ourselves out,” he said, stressing that the government would have to rely less on borrowing.