At a Maritime Stakeholders Conference held by the Ministry of Transportation in Lagos, yesterday 16th May, Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo said he regretted not privatizing the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) during his time.
According to Obasanjo, the private sector have over the years shown to be very profitable in whatever project the Federal government gets them involved in ..
He said :
“I was instrumental to the reform and establishment of the NNPC from the Nigerian National Oil Corporation. Had I known that it would be mismanaged, I would have done something better. I would have privatised it and put it on the stock Exchange. The NLNG didn’t go the way of the NNPC because of the way it was organised. Fifty-one per cent is owned by private investors, both foreign and indigenous, while 49 per cent is owned by the government. In fact, the NLNG has been making money ever since the initial capital investment. From three trains, we are going to seven trains.”
”The institutions that are important in the country, which have not worked, we have to make them work. We can use the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company as a model. We should look into these areas and think outside of the box. Until the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency became a place where people stole money, nobody knew much about it. Now, everybody wants to work there. Look at the National Inland Waterways Authority, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron and the Nigeria Ports Authority, which we tried to privatise. These are institutions we can make to work.”
