*Says government handed over public assets to their friends
By Emeka Mamah
Enugu—Former Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr. Chu S.P. Okongwu has criticised the poor handling of the privatisation of the power sector, saying that what the Federal Government actually did was to hand over public assets to their friends in the name of privatisation.
Okongwu who spoke in an interview with Vanguard in Enugu also called for the promotion of small scale industries as well as encouragement of farmers through deliberate and favourable government policies to grow the economy.
He specifically asked government to reduce the high interest rate on loans for small scale industries to flourish in the country, as according to him, politics was about transforming society from bad to good or good to better.
His words: ‘’They have completely damaged the economy. This was what Obasanjo and Abacha did or started. Look at the privatisation of PHCN. Malaysia imported crops from Nigeria and developed her palm produce. Same thing with the rubber imported from Nigeria. There are no rubber estates again in Nigeria. You have now had insight into certain models of privatisation (in Malaysia like FELDA) where farmers have 51 per cent control, why can’t we use that as a model, same thing as Britain.
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