‘Auctioneers Can Assist FG Generate Funds For Devt’

The National Association of Auctioneers, has declared that they are ready to assist the federal government to generate revenue for national development.

The president of the association, Alhaji Aliyu Kiliya said the body could assist in generating revenue for national development by providing professional services for proper disposal of recovered and forfeited assets.

Kiliya stated this on the backdrop of President Bola Tinubu’s openness in the disposal of recovered and forfeited assets expressing the way he is trying to make sure that auctioneers are carried along.

He noted that auctioneers can provide professional services and ensure the national funding on the national projects are generated from its services.

“We want to support this government by our professions. There are so many services that we can render to help the government in generating revenue,” he explained.

According to him, a lot of money was lost in the previous years but the way the present government is trying to carry out the disposal by ensuring that the procedure of the disposal is carried out in line with correct procedures is commendable.

Alhaji Kiliya pointed out that: “There were so many hard sales in the previous years because the way things were going, they were not supposed to be. Most of the potential buyers are conversant with open competitive bidding which allows them to participate in procuring items that are supposed to be auctioned but a policy was brought which has not been recognised by the National Assembly and there was no law backing online sales in Nigeria.”

The national president stressed the disposal procedures have to be professional in the sense that it will protect the government from losing revenue because there are so many challenges in Hard Sale which brings about many technical deformities.

As such, he said, since the government has a motive in ensuring things are done professionally, and due process is going to be complied, auctioneers as stakeholders should be carried along.

Alhaji Kiliya commended the acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria Air Force, Nigeria Navy, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Acting Inspector General of Police, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies and acting Comptroller-General of Customs for seeing that all procedures would be applied in the disposal of recovered and forfeited assets.

According to him, procedures introduced by EFCC and Customs will help the government generate money for national funding saying people who are professionals, have the knowledge, capacity and experience will be contracted to do the disposal of these assets.

The national president said the association has done a lot with the previous government advising it not to borrow from outside the country as monies needed can be generated with the disposal of assets that were confiscated through Recovered and Forfeited items.

“The idea was accepted but through the way it went, instead of carrying us as professionals, they didn’t carry us along the way we are supposed to assist the government, so there was little failure,” he said.

Alhaji Kiliya explained that the association also drew the attention of the federal government that non-core assets were not for the successor of Power Holding and generated over N40 to N50 billion on the notice.

He stressed that going forward the government should sell national assets through the due process as stipulated by the Bureau of Public Enterprises Act.

The National President also condemn the process of secret bidding auction carried out by the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) nothing that though the exercise was short of due process as the quantity of scraps sold can not be measured and government is losing a lot of billions of Naira as a result of that, the Nigeria Association of Auctioneers and its members ought to have been carried along to value the scraps and sale these items in open competitive bidding to generate more revenue for national funding instead of the monies going into private pockets.

He explained that, by doing so, professional exercise would have been done and maximum money had been earned for the federal government. Alhaji Kiliya also spoke about Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) advising that it should not be closed as it would bring a lot of litigation against the government.

Besides, he said AMCON has many properties in its possession and anything that would lead to its folding would make the government lose many properties and revenue therein.

According to him, AMCON is an organisation that looks at security and should not be tampered with.