The National Planning Minister, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, has advised host communities of privatised companies located within their domains to cooperate with owners of such companies in order to enhance optimum capacity utilisation and improve industrialisation in the country.
The minister, who stated during his facility visit to Dangote Cement Plant in Gboko, Benue State, with other members of the Policy and Monitoring Committee of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), stressed that host communities stood the chance of benefiting more if such companies are provided the enabling environment required for them to operate optimally with the attendant implications for their profitability and sustainable growth. Usman, who is the Chairman of the Committee, said further that such host communities would gain through more employment opportunities and other social services that would be provided by such entities in furtherance of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) functions to the society.
While pointing out that the visit was a fact-finding one aimed at ascertaining the true state of things at already privatised public enterprises, especially in view of the feeling in many quarters that many of them were not performing well, the minister commended the management of Dangote Cement for the progress recorded with expansion and facilities upgrade which, he observed, had improved cement production and supply across the country.
The minister said: "I know that many privatised companies are doing well. I believe this (Dangote Cement) is one of them. If this has remained under government control, it wouldn't have done better.
"The whole essence of privatisation is to improve efficiency and promote investment. Here (Dangote Cement), capacity has been tripled and is about being quadrupled, since privatisation. We, as members of this committee set up by the vice president, are using the opportunity to go round the country and see how privatisation is doing.
