Urgently needed, investors in Nigeria’s transport sector – BPE
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Mr Alex Okoh, Director General, Board for Public Enterprises, PBE
Smart investors from the private sector have been called upon to take the initiative and scout through various government operations and agencies’ activities especially in the transportation sector of the national economy and come up with proposal on aspects of the operations they would like to profitable manage in partnership with the government.
The Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr Alex Okoh, made the fervent apeal at a webinar over the weekend, which was organized by the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce, and sponsored by Sifax Group.
The webinar essentially examined Public Private Partnership, PPP, as an alternative financing model in the maritime sector” nay all the other transportation modes in the country.
Alex Okoh said that the BPE had been saddled with more responsibilities since September 2020, through a directive “which in effect means that players in the country’s maritime and other key sectors of the economy can in their own initiative, identify and suggest projects to the government through the BPE or relevant MDAs”.
The BPE helmsman further said that, “once these projects are examined, approval will be given to the relevant parties to undertake an appraisal, feasibility study or outline of business case, which will be scrutinized by the government. Thereafter, a tender will be published” to attract competitive bidding in accordance to the procurement act.
Okoh noted that the simplification of entering into PPP with government had attracted more private operators to give it consideration
He further explained, “the benefit of this is that the originator of the project will be allowed to provide a matching offer with that of the highest bidder and if the party is able to match this offer, they will be declared the preferred bidder,” he said.
He urged the private sector to identify the gaps in transport infrastructure in the nation’s transportation industry- be it road, air, rail and the maritime sector and work towards providing solutions.
Okoh said such investments in and around Nigeria’s ports would help reduce the high shipping and terminal charges and local transport to warehouse costs.
He corroborated the benefits from well planned concession by citing the concession at the Apapa port by saying, “the success of the port concession, has since been consistently reflected in the revenue of the federal government from the sector which has been more than doubled ten years after the concession”.
The DG, BPE revealed that the competing needs for the lean resources of the Federal Government had also made PPP a very strong and viable alternative government was given serious attention as a way to reorder its budgetary allocation and concentrate on other more critical sectors.
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