October 16, (THEWILL) – The Cross River State Executive Council, led by Governor Ben Ayade, is to consider the technical report on the sale of state assets.
The chairman of the State Privatisation Council, John Odo, disclosed this in Calabar while recieving the report of the technical committee set up to review the referendum on sale of state assets.
He said the council will also adopt the report as its working document.
Odo said, “This is to inform you that the technical team led by the statistician General is to hand over the coallated result of the Referendum Questionnaire formally to the privatization council.
“The Council shall thereafter adopt the report and subsequently hand over the report to His Excellency in Council and the State Executive Council members (EXCO) for further necessary action”, he said.
He said most of the assets scheduled for privatisation have attained about 98% completion and the state privatisation exercise is backed by a law enacted during the Donald Duke administration in 2001.
Speaking while presenting the report, the secretary of the technical committee, Asim Ita, said 3000 questionnaires were administered and the committee analysed 1510, representing just over 50 percent, to arrive at its results.
He said 88% of the people of the state agreed to privatisation while 12% did not.
He explained that the report has an asset by asset breakdown with the highest being the rice seedling factory which 71% of respondents want privatised.
The technical committee also strongly recommended that the privatisation council should organise a private sector consultative engagement as this will help in validating or re-validating the results.
About the Author
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
