Sale of State firms to go on

• Commission awaiting Cabinet approval on its proposals to move on with the process

Privatisation of selected State corporations will go on as soon as approvals are received from the government.

Detailed proposals on how the process would proceed were submitted to the Treasury late last year.

The proposals contain the timeframe and strategies for disposal of government shareholding in the agencies.

According to the chief executive of Privatisation Commission, Mr Solomon Kitungu, approval was key to completing the planned sales.

“We submitted the proposals to Treasury in December and are now awaiting the go ahead to move to the next stage of the privatisation,” Mr Kitungu told the Nation in a telephone interview at the weekend.

Among the corporations targeted in the submitted proposals include National Bank of Kenya and Kenya Wines Agency Limited. Others are five State-backed sugar factories and 11 hotels spread across the country.

Already, the Ministry of Agriculture has given an indication that it will be looking for strategic investors to take up 51 per cent of the sugar millers in the sale. This should be completed by May, minister William Ruto, said recently.

“We are going to seek Cabinet approval to go ahead with the tendering process for the investors that will best run the factories,” Mr Ruto told journalists in an earlier meeting.

The process to privatise the government bodies begun in January 2009, following presidential acceptance as an exit strategy from government control and to put them in an arena of efficiency in operations. However, the procedure has been viewed by several quarters as delayed.

“We are on course with the plans, it is only that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure transparency and accountability. We do not want to rush it since we would not be creating any value for Kenyans,” Mr Kitungu said in defence of the timing.

As opposed to previous budgets, the 2009/2010 fiscal year does not expect to reap heavily from the privatisation. This, therefore, serves to ease the deadline pressure from the commission in achieving its objectives.

Mr Kitungu also said the commission was in the final stages of paperwork for the remaining outfits set for privatisation before presenting details to the Treasury.