CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
There are rapid and sweeping changes taking place in the political economy of most developed and developing countries. This is dominated by liberal democracy in the political process and free-enterprise in the economic sphere. In the economic sphere, these changes are characterized by economic reform programmes whose fundamental objective is the rationalization of national economics for the achievement of efficiency and effectiveness in resource allocation and laying the foundation for future growth. By economic reforms, it means a significant movement by governments to expand the use of market signals in shaping production and distribution patterns, and the reduction of direct state ownership and direct stale controls over the economy.
Typically, these reforms occur across several important sectors and include changes in the degree of stale ownership and regulation, in pricing, personnel and other management decisions at the enterprise level.
It is important to observe that state enterprises suffer from fundamental problems of defective capital structure, excessive bureaucratic control or intervention, inappropriate technology, gross incompetence and mismanagement, blatant corruption and crippling complacency which Monopoly engenders. Inevitably, these shortcomings take a heavy toll on the national economy.
Nigerian economy from colonial history through independence and up till today has been characterized by huge government investment in Public Enterprises (P.E.) had always arrived in a mixed economic system where government at all levels, being the major spender, sought to nurture and increase commonwealth for the greatest good of the greatest number through heavy capital investment.
The deciding factor propelling such investments by successive governments in Nigeria was (and still is) the availability of enormous spendable resources more than anything else. Thus, one might, especially given the topic of this discourse, well, extend the argument to say that the shortest act to our economic blues is to legislate government out of the control of excessive disposable resources via privatization.
Privatization has emerged as a major public policy issue in many countries of the world in the decade of the 80's, following the revival and efficiency of the doctrines of the market forces in the leading industrial countries. This programme entails the transfer of some government owned enterprises to the private sector, either fully or partially and the adoption of National commercialization practice in some enterprises which still remain publicly owned.
Thus, going by definition, section 14 of the Decree Number 25 defines privatization as the "relinquishment of part of all the equity and other interest held by the Federal Government". Commercialization, which appears to be a different concept from privatization, aims to re-organize enterprises whether owned wholly or partly by Federal Government, to profit making ventures. Thus, the key words to note in the case of enterprises to be commercialized are: re-organization and profit-making.
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