Privatization Committee resumes service ten years later

The Minister of State, Minister of Economy, Finance, Planning, Public Portfolio and Integration commissioned the Privatization Committee this Wednesday, July 3, 2017, during the inaugural meeting of this body after ten years of hibernation and inactivity. For Gilbert Ondongo, it is a question of putting things in order by effectively reviving the process of privatization of the score of listed companies, in particular by revisiting each of them.

The new privatization committee created by Decree No. 2012-862 of 3 August 2012 is now at work. Opening the inaugural meeting of the committee, Minister of State Gilbert Ondongo made a thorough review of the process that led the government to create this technical body whose role is to assist in the development, implementation and monitoring of the privatization policy. After two hours of exchange, Gilbert Ondongo, in his capacity as chairman of the committee, set the new course by indicating the direction to be followed, as well as the strategies to be put in place to prevent the new privatization committee from losing sight of its vision or from making hazardous choices in this process. Thus, it recommended that each company to be privatized be revisited through a study justifying the choices made; for each target company, all privatization modalities are proposed; that a privatization strategy document on public-private partnership be developed and that prior to all these actions the permanent secretariat take stock of all the privatizations carried out during the hibernation period.

From discussions between the members of the committee, it appears that during this period, many cases of predation were recorded on public heritage: abusive occupation of spaces, auction and illegal sales etc. In this regard, while taking stock of privatizations companies in the Republic of Congo, the committee's permanent secretary, Jean Joseph Imangué noted that there is much to be done. "Indeed, out of a total of more than 100 public portfolio companies eligible for the privatization program, most of them have been liquidated rather than privatized". However, the totality of privatizations, excluding the fallout from the banking and forestry sectors, as well as licenses allocated to telecommunications operators, brought the State budget to just 29 billion 286 million 975 thousand and 301 francs. Thus, to date, there are still some 20 companies for which the privatization committee must propose to the government new strategies for their privatization or liquidation. These are the following sectors: Hotel and tourism (4); Posts and Telecommunications (2); transit and transport (6); water and electricity (2); hydrocarbons (1); banking and insurance (1).

According to provisions of the decree mentioned above, the privatization committee is particularly responsible for: proposing companies to privatize; draw up specifications; have the companies to be privatized assessed by independent consultancies, selected by tender, concurrently with the national audit office; establish the schedule of disposals of assets and determine the terms and conditions for the management of the company during the interim period and prior restructuring if necessary and publish any information relating to the privatization and restructuring program: prospectus, advertising insert, note of information.

Jules Débel