ASCAB writes senate, seeks reversal of ‘fraudulent’ privatisation programmes 

The Alliance for Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a civil society coalition, has asked the senate to set up an agency that would reverse alleged fraudulent privatisation programmes carried out in the country.

In a letter to Senate President Ahmad Lawan, ASCAB also asked the upper legislative chamber to pressure the executive to act on its report on Nigeria’s past privatisation programmes.

In 2011, the senate set up a committee to investigate the privatisation and commercialisation activities of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) from 1999 to 2011.

The committee, which was chaired by Lawan, had said it found sharp practices in the exercise, ranging from alleged fraud and abuse of power.

It had as a result urged the government to reverse some of the privatisation programmes.

In the letter dated April 28, Femi Falana, interim chairman of ASCAB, said the senate should use “legislative tools to put pressure on the Executive” to implement the committee report.

The senior lawyer asked the lawmakers to “enact an Act to facilitate the establishment of a body that would actualize the reversal of all past privatizations which your (Lawan’s) Committee found were characterized by abuses, illegality and fraud.”

“ASCAB is committed to partnering with the Senate in popularizing the findings of your Committee and putting public pressure on the Executive arm of Government to implement the Recommendations of your Committee,” he said.

“We look forward to a collaborative campaign that would lead to a reversal of the dispossession of the public and the taking back from the private sector of the resources that have been fraudulently transferred to private individuals and/or their companies.”