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Privatize Major Industries To Boast Jobs & Skills By Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
The battle line has been drawn. It is the private ventures that are daring the management and workers of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation to capitalize on just concluded Turn Around Maintenance of Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries to increase production capacity to 80% before the end of the year. It has turned into a challenge of boasted skill and aptitude between public and private sectors. It will be refreshing if this competition can produce long awaited good standard of achievement because of the message it will send to other money sinkhole industries. They have to shape up or stand down.
Privatization, like indigenization of major industries in Nigeria is as important as ever since the 1960s when most of the foreign companies were “encouraged” to have Nigerian directors and partners in fairness and equity to the host Country. That generation has now retired. As some of those retirees had gained, some missed out but had acquired ingenuity despite the war. We must find out if the benefits of those indigenization and ingenuity learned, gained or achieved were on long term basis: mainly boasting skills, services, local production, and jobs creation.
Not enough, going by the controversy of Dangote and Otedola exit from buying Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries that sent some shivers across towns. In a worst case scenario, are those same refineries going to be sold to foreigners, and if so, would these men invest their money into any other refinery outside Nigeria where the risk of vandalism is low? We were the ones who complained that too many Nigerians invested outside the Country. Now that they invest here, we are up in arms against them. Some minds are so split up I hope it does not extend to our bodies. Can we risk or afford to buy the refineries with our own pension contributions?
Most indications are that investing in new refineries for long-term use are becoming an obsolete idea as oil reserves continue to dwindle and profit margin compared to other segments of production is not as high. United States refinery capacity is down right now because the oil companies refused to build new ones and those in existence had been worked to maximum capacity when Hurricane Katrina put a major one out of business. The delay of TAM in order to cope has contributed to the inability to meet demand for in the USA this summer, jacking up prices. Nigerians make less money than Americans and the only benefit they get is lower petrol price.
If private venture capitalists keep their money at home, the best avenue is to build a refinery in Nigeria that will complement the existing ones. But no single group should corner all the major markets in Nigeria. Unfortunately, our attitude is anything in the hands of government is nobody’s business. Some conservative would go as far as saying the government has no business managing private businesses that can be managed by private enterprises. That is not entirely true because, as I always say, the Cooperatives worked well between the local governments and the people during groundnut pyramids and cocoa days. This is more complex, ok? Ok sir!
Take our Nigeria Airways for instance. We simply fail to take off. Our planes and money vanished from one management to another. The Government could not operate an airline but individual corporations like Arik and Belleview can. We had a series of air mishaps because of maintenance problem, not necessarily because of old planes or new planes. In the end, viable airline will emerge out of many that will compete effectively with foreign airlines; if not some of the local airlines may decide to merge to form formidable alliance.
Nigeria had and some will argue that we still have problems in the telecommunication industry, because our land lines and broadband capacity are still not as great. Suffice to note that this sector of our economy reveals some disturbing attitude about us. It was monopolized for many years and we hardly moved an inch. In the name of deregulation, African brothers and sisters stepped in and we suddenly jumped to par with our sister countries like Benin Republic where market women enjoyed GSM well before us.
There are other industries where the commitment of Nigerians are lacking, not because of skill but because of the will to serve ourselves right and lack of patient for steady returns. We are known to have given major concession away to foreign investors in return for fast peanuts, today’s mirror in exchange for gold. However, if the Government ever gives any concession to foreign companies, we raise hell for the sake of the privileged few who did nothing while they had the industry in their hands. Not enough has been documented or said about how oil blocks are given to those connected and then sold out to foreigners.
It is not that simple I must confess because many of us are part of the complainants. We ask for transparency, fairness but not for adequate skill to manage the industries. We are also aware of the grievances of those who ask for “encouragement” to develop their home inventions or prototypes. Usually, people start their small business from their kitchen or garages and market them until they have to expand into rented spaces to meet demand. No government handouts or capital beyond those of relatives or esusu needed.
None of this is lacking in Nigeria. Indeed we are natural business people and we prefer capitalism in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, no matter what. These are the countries where communism would never have succeeded even in its heydays. We are always selling and buying from one another. A friend said when he needed food, he opened a restaurant, he needed cars, he opened used car business and when he needed a house, he went into real estate. We have even turned parties into money making ventures through aso ebi. Boy, if it was that easy, many of us would be filthy rich.
Someone once asked a professor of business that if he was that smart, how come he was not rich. He replied that if the fellow was so rich how come he was not smart. Another friend of mine told me that by the time he established a business model and considered the pro and cons of it, he would give up. But an uninformed person with zeal could jump into the same venture and loose or might actually succeed. The point here is enthusiasm, confidence and natural know-how like the son of a herbalist that became a pharmacist and turn family recipe into potent drug that people can bank on to cure viruses.
Eventually, we may not need South Africans to bail us out of the telecommunication fix we have. Our managers and workers may be willing to invest their pension money, trade union dues, and building funds to buy part of Power Holding Corporation, famously seen and known as NEPA. That is when real competition will begin between private sector and public sector in the operation of the most abuse industry in our economy.
When people realize that their pension funds, union dues, esusu and personal investments are involved in creating jobs, securing their future at the same time managing their daily lives, transparency and accountability will become a must not the exception. Our village instinct that no dog dare steal from this coffer will return. Any suspicion, magomago or smell of embezzlement will have to be settled at the shrine.
Wait, if they can steal salary in the villages, ransack Oba’s palace, invade police stations, shrine, mosques and churches, what makes you think they can not divert your union dues, pension, esusu and life investment away from producing jobs? Here comes Tsunami! |