The apex northern socio-cultural umbrella body Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has faulted the calls for the sale of viable national assets by prominent Nigerians as inappropriate, describing such call as unwise.ACF in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Muhammad Ibrahim, said The growing calls by some prominent politicians and business tycoons on the Federal Government to consider the selling of strategic viable national assets as an option to take the economy out of recession at this material time is inappropriate.According to ACF, past privatization exercise did not yield the desired result in terms of judicious use of proceeds by the government or management practices of the assets by the new owners, stressing that Moreover, the amount to be realized is not worth the exercise.ACF recalled that government enterprises like the Nigeria Airways, National Shipping Line, Ajaokuta Steel Company, NITEL, NEPA among others that were sold to selected Nigerians and their foreign collaborators in the spirit of privatization, only succeeded in converting public enterprises to private ones, and some later became comatose, adding that the ones that survived, their service delivery cannot be said to be better.ACF therefore considers it unwise for the Federal Government to contemplate the selling of our major national assets like the Oil refineries, Federal Airports, NLNG, while we can use them as security against needed funds to boost the economy, as the recession is considered to be temporary. After all, the Federal Governments diversification policy in agriculture and solid mineral resources is aimed at boosting the economy to arrest the recession.The suggestion offered by the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, that Nigerias assets like the NLNG and other strategic national resources should not be sold to meet short term financial obligation should be taken seriously.In addition, ACF wishes to suggest that unnecessary allowances of public officers and overhead cost that form over 40% of our annual budget should be converted to capital allocation to boost the economy. This is the time for national sacrifice in order to bequeath an enduring legacy to the next generation. Positive change usually comes with painful necessary sacrifice.ACF however supports some of the measures proposed by the National Economic Council but seriously objects to the selling of strategic national assets just to get out a temporary economic recession.ACF calls upon our prominent business men and women to invest their resources in the oil and gas industry, building of airports, etc that will compete favorably with the public ones. This will equally boost the economy through employment and infrastructural development. Lets put on our thinking cap and do the needful, rather than taking short term measures.
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