The
Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Ezra
Dikki, has commended the formal launch of the Guild of Corporate Online
Publishers (GOCOP) just as his office is enabling inflow of Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) into the country, reports ITRealms.
Speaking
at the launch of GOCOP in Lagos at the weekend, Mr. Dikki also said BPE has
laid the foundation for enabling foreign direct investment in the country
through privatization and commercialization.
“No
doubt, the launch of GOCOP could not have come at a better time than now, given
that the world over, online publication has become the vogue; and Nigeria cannot
afford to be left behind,” he said.
BPE,
he said, thus commends GOCOP bold initiative to inaugurate the Guild which
undoubtedly, is made up of reputable media practitioners with several years of
experience with the primary objective of ensuring that online publishers in
Nigeria uphold the tenets of journalism and to serve as a platform for peer
review.
He pointed out
that the Bureau as the secretariat for the policy implementation arm of the
National Council on Privatization (NCP) chaired by His Excellent, the Vice
Presidency is focused on reform and privatization.
“In this regard, at
the beginning of every year, the Bureau takes its work plan to Council for
approval before implementation. It should be noted that in over three decades, reform and privatization
have been a key economic policy of successive administrations as regards in
Nigeria,” he said.
As a result of the reforms,
privatisation and commercialization, Dikki said, Nigeria has witnessed
tremendous inflow of foreign direct investments in various sectors of the economy.
“It is worthy to note that
the advent of democratic governance since 1999, strong foundation were laid for
economic reform and attraction of private capital to the national economy,” he
said.
The
government, he said, believes that the effective implementation of the proposed
reform programmes will attract private capital; reduce government and political interference in the
running of the economy; and clearly define role and functions of participants in
the economy.
He recalled that the improved telephony which the
nation is presently enjoying is a result of such reforms in the sector which
produced the Telecom Policy and Legal/Regulatory framework which the NCP/BPE
championed in 2000.
“Through the reforms carried out in the
telecommunications sector, Nigeria has moved from about 400,000 telephone lines
in 2001 to about 134 million lines in 2015; and the teledensity has increased
from estimated 2.5 per cent to 95 percent in a space of 12 years,” Dikki said.
Describing inauguration of GOCOP as another eloquent
testimony of the successful reform of the telecommunication sector, given that
its main stead is on technologies.
“And the same multiplier effect is expected when the
reforms in other sectors of the economy by the federal government are completed,”
he said and congratulated GOCOP on this milestone.
+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +ITRealms DSA
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