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BPE DG faulted in NECOM House sale – Ex-director

By on January 13, 2016

The former Director of Post Privatisation Monitoring at the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Ibrahim Kashim, has alleged that the current director-general of the agency, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, was indicted by a panel for the controversial sale of the NECOM House, Lagos.

The Punch had on April 6, 2011 broken the story of the sale of one of the nation’s tallest buildings to the company owned by Chief Suarau Olayiwola Bankole, father of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, for N4bn in controversial circumstances in 2007.

The house belonged to the defunct Nigeria Telecommunications Limited.

In a statement on Monday, Kashim, who is fighting for the payment of his gratuity by the privatisation agency, said as the director in charge of telecommunications, Dikki had the responsibility to convey to the liquidator of NITEL that the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had stopped the sale of the house but he failed to do so.

Kashim said, “The DG (then Director, Information and Communication Department) and his now favourite director (then the special assistant to the former DG), being members of the committee of inspection for the liquidation of NITEL, wilfully refused to convey to the then NITEL liquidator a presidential directive not to sell the NECOM House.

“On her appointment as director-general, Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa, set up an in-house committee chaired by my humble self to investigate what happened and who were responsible. The report (of the committee) indicted the current DG and the then SA.

“The report was sent to the then Vice President Namadi Sambo. Curiously, Ms. Onagoruwa was shortly removed, the liquidator was charged to court and Mr. Benjamin Dikki became the DG of the BPE.”

Kashim also alleged Dikki diluted government’s interest in Transcorp Hilton Hotel instead of selling the shares to the public as had been planned.

He said, “In Transcorp Hilton Hotel, the government retained 49 per cent of the shares in the hotel, while 51 per cent was sold to a core investor. The philosophy behind the government retaining shares in privatised enterprises was to allow the investor invest in and turn around the fortunes of the companies before selling the residual shares to the Nigerian public.

“However, upon becoming DG, Dikki, who represents the government on the Board of Transcorp Hotel, against advice from the Post-Privatisation Monitoring Department and the Capital Market Unit in line with the stated objective of the programme that the shares be sold to the Nigerian public, ensured that the government shares were diluted from 49 per cent to about 20 per cent now.

“No one in the management knew of this development till after its conclusion. The matter was never brought to the management where surely it would have recommended otherwise.”

Responding to the allegations, the Head of Public Communications, BPE, Mr. Alex Okoh, said they were meant to tarnish the image of Dikki.

He said, “There was no indictment anywhere in spite of all the committees that investigated the sale of NECOM House in 2007 and 2008 when the current DG was only a director. None of the reports indicted him. On the dilution of Federal Government’s shares, the ex-director knows that the bureau does not take unilateral actions.

“It was done when the core investor wanted to do expansion and the Federal Government was not in a position to participate in the Rights Issue, and the government was briefed and it approved of the dilution, which resulted in expanding the ownership to Nigerians.”
[Punch]