The president Dangote group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has advised the federal government to take back the assets it sold earlier and give to people who have the financial muscle to manage them.
Dangote who spoke in Plateau state during the senior executive session of course 38 at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru reportedly said the majority of the people who bought these power assets do not have an understanding of it.
The billionaire businessman advised the government to negotiate with them and find solutions to the problems confronting the sector.
He said: “We should be as open as we can if government doesn’t intervene by taking back these assets and giving them to people who really have money that they can really inject, we will not be able to deliver on power”.
Dangote who argued that majority of the investors didn’t really understand the business and it is difficult for them to maximise the business potential says what government did was to privatise but the privatisation was done wrongly what
“People who wanted to buy all these plants, both the generating and distribution companies, thought that this was another opportunity like mobile phones, where we have moved from 500,000 lines in 2000 and in ten years we now have 120million lines”.
“Yes it would have been so but these guys, what they did when they bought these power plants was that they borrowed 90% of the money in foreign currency. You cannot go and borrow dollars when your base income is in naira, you will have an issue because your earnings are in naira you are taking a huge exchange risk and that is what happened today.
“These are guys, with respect to them, when I say guys I don’t mean 100% of them but the majority of them went in without even understanding what they are doing and the worst thing for any entrepreneur is to go into a business without understanding it.
“If you wake me up in the middle of the night on any of the businesses we are doing today, even the new ones, I will be able to explain it to you. I know my entry and I know my exit but unfortunately that is what these guys did and today they are holding the entire nation to ransom, it is very embarrassing for us.
Advising government to sit down with the investor and negotiate the best way out; Dangote says Nigeria is desperately in needs of power.
“If there is no power; no growth because if you look at the medium and small industries, most of their income goes into buying diesel or petrol to generate power and that shouldn’t be the case. I believe with enough power we will have tremendous growth,” he maintained.
