Abstract:
Privatization Of Public Enterprises In Nigeria: Prospects and Problems Upon the attainment of independence in late of flies and early sixties, many African Countries including Nigeria and a host of others embarked upon the establishment or public enterprises managed and controlled by the government of each country. This might be as a result of lack of foreign investment in the areas of infrastructural facilities such as water, roads, power, and communication to mention just few that could make life meaningful to the citizenry. However, the Problems of conflict of objectives insufficient enterprise autonomy, defective capita l structures resulting in heavy dependence on the national treasury for operational purposes, mismanagement of funds and operations and bureautic rather than commercial management style called for privatisation of these public utilities to avoid total collapse of the system and the grounding of the economy. Privatisation is a tool for economic management o f modern industrial economy. It refers to transferring of ownership, management and or control of business enterprises from the public sector to the private sector. The objective of the study is to examine the reasons and basis for privatisation and problems in Nigeria. The survey research method using questionnaire was adopted in eliciting data from respondents for this study. The major findings are:-
The Weakness of Capital Markets is seen as a major obstacle to privatization and it could not support the public scale of these public enterprises. The government subsidized loans or guaranteed to capital- intensive infrastructural projects and public enterprises encourage lavish use of capital with scant regard for its true scarcity.
