ABSTRACT
The public enterprise sector in Nigeria experienced major expansion in the 1970s and 1980s, being financed with revenue from the oil industry. By the late 1980s, the public enterprise sector was estimated to have accounted for 30-40 per cent of GDP and 20 per cent of employment in the modern economic sector. Mounting economic problems during the 1980s, especially public sector indebtedness and the related budgetary deficits, compelled the Nigerian Government to seek solutions to problems of the public enterprise sector. The report of a Study Group on Public Enterprise revealed that enterprises were infested with problems such as:
• misuse of monopoly powers; • defective capital structure, resulting in heavy dependence on government treasury; • bureaucratic red tape in their relations with supervisory ministries; • mismanagement, corruption and nepotism.
