This question was posed to Halifa Sallah.
He indicated that the government would continue to depend on contracting tax-based economy to over tax the citizenry to maintain public services.
Public enterprises are the institutions that have enabled many governments in the world, such as Singapore, Soth Korea, Kuwait, China, Malaysia and so on and so forth to build strong economies that could accommodate the private sector to deliver the type of services those governments are delivering today.
Shortsighted African governments have been privatising their public enterprises instead of ensuring their restructuring and capitalisation to get rid of their mismanagement and guarantee their profitability. GPA, Gamtel/Gamcel, Social Security, NFSPMC (formerly GGC) and GNPC could have been the backbone of the productive base of the government if these sectors were properly restructured, capitalised and managed to deliver as programmed.
Both public and private enterprises could have structural deficiencies and liquidity shortcomings. They could be affected by losses. However, when they are capable of being profitable, what they need are stimulus packages through a recapitalisation scheme so that they will overcome their losses and move towards profitability.
This is precisely why governments have the duty to examine the state of each public enterprise to determine what is required to move them from incurring losses towards profitability. Cabinet therefore needs to share its findings on Gamtel and Gamcel that convinced the government that it should privatise the backbone of its telecommunication system.
The National Assembly should review such findings to determine what has given rise to what is currently taking place at Gamtel/ Gamcel.
There is a real danger in the policy direction of a government that quickly subjects sovereign national assets to privatisation because of the failures of those who manage them. Wherever management is found to be defective, the solution is to replace them if they are culpable of any act of mismanagement and maladministration. If enterprises need recapitalisation to ensure desirable investment to overcome losses, the public sector should be willing to provide such funds.
