Senate Panel Recommends Sack of BPE boss, Bolanle Onagoruwa

The Senate Adhoc Committee that probed the privatisation of Federal Government’s enterprises has recommendation that the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprise, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, be  removed.

The committee, which made 45 recommendations, also said  former Directors-General of BPE Nasir el-Rufai, Dr. Julius Bala and Mrs. Irene Chigbue should  be reprimanded by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).

The committee, which submitted its report to the Senate on Tuesday, stated that the former helmsmen should be reprimanded for seeking approval directly from the President instead of the NCP as stipulated in the Public Enterprises Act 1999.

The investigation by the committee, which was led by Senator Ahmed Lawan, covered 1999 till date.

The committee noted that Onagoruwa should be removed for what it described as “gross incompetence in the management of the BPE and for illegal and fraudulent sale of the five per cent Federal Government’s shares in the Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited (EPCL).”

The committee also recommended that Bala should be investigated by anti-graft agencies for giving approval to Folio Communications Limited for the illegal sale of assets of Daily Times of Nigeria Plc.

It recommended that the NCP should rescind the sale of the Daily Times to Folio Communication Limited, in keeping with an earlier court judgment.

It also recommended that the sale of assets of DTN by Folio Communications and its directors be investigated by anti-graft agencies and the sold assets recovered.

The committee said NCP should set up  a sub-committee to verify post-privatisation monitoring of BPE.

It added that the five-year post-privatisation monitoring (lock-in-period) should be reviewed upward to 10 years.

This, the committee said, is to enable the core investors to implement the Post-Acquisition Plans (PAP) and BPE to monitor compliance.

The committee recommended the reorganisation of the management of BPE to make it more effective and efficient. It also said presidential interference in privatisation should be avoided.

The committee said BPE should refund bid bonds approved for refund by NCP.

It said BPE should close all privatisation proceeds accounts in commercial banks and put funds in Privatisation Proceeds Account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in compliance with section 19(1) of the Public Enterprises Act 1999.

The committee recommended that BPE should discontinue the use of privatisation proceeds to settle staff terminal benefits, consultancy fees, transaction expenses and execution of capital projects.