By Adedayo Akinwale
The House of Representatives has resolved to constitute an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate and recover monies, assets and dividends in some privatised public enterprises.
The House also resolved that the committee would be chaired by the chairman, House Committee on privatisation.
Moving the motion at the plenary on yesterday, Hon. Mukhtar Ahmed recalled that the federal government embarked on privatisation and commercialisation of public enterprises to introduce private sector resources and discipline, create jobs and reduce the burden of funding the public enterprise from the national treasury.
He noted that prior to and post privatisation of some federal government public enterprises, the federal government still owned shares in some of the enterprises, and therefore entitled to dividends.
Ahmed said some of the assets, cash and residual shares in privatised public enterprises are still unaccounted for, while some of the privatised companies like NICON Insurance, Nigerian Re-Insurance and Nicon Luxury Hotels are already taken over by AMCON over acquisition loans.
The lawmaker, therefore, expressed concern that the federal government may not be able to recover those monies, dividends and assets except if they are properly determined.
Considering the fact that the federal government needs money to finance the budget, the House, therefore, resolved “to constitute an Ad-hoc Committee of the House to investigate, determine those assets and report back to the House within eight weeks.”
