- Govt to Sell N289bn Assets to Fund Budget
The Federal Government will offer 10 state-owned companies for sale to selected investors and the public in the fourth quarter to raise N289bn toward funding the 2018 budget, the Bureau of Public Enterprises said.
According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, preparations are in the final stages to begin the sale of the companies in industries that range from power through aviation to insurance, a director of the BPE, Joe Anichebe, said on Saturday in Abeokuta.
“Two of them, Nicon Insurance Limited and Skyway Aviation Handling Company, will be sold this month or early next month through an initial public offering,” he said.
President Muhammadu Buhari had signed a record N9.1tn budget into law in June, with a smaller fiscal deficit compared with the previous year, which the government seeks to fund from sources other than revenue from oil, its main export.
The privatisation agency had pledged to raise N306bn to help finance the planned spending.
The agency sold a 21 per cent stake in the state-owned mint to the Central Bank of Nigeria last week for N17.3bn, according to Anichebe.
