AN ASSESSMENT OF COST PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN PRIVATIZED PUBLIC ENTERPRISES IN NIGERIA

Despite an impressive level of privatization activity across Africa and the upsurge in search of the operating performance of privatized firms in both develop  and  developing  economies,  our  empirical  knowledge  of  the privatization program in Africa is limited. The purpose of this study is to appraise the post privatization cost and operating performance as well as accountability of some privatized public enterprises in Nigeria.

 A survey research design was adopted for the study, sixty five internal audit and thirty  five  accounting.  Totally  one  hundred  was  randomly  sampled  and stratified  among  the  staff  of  Oando  plc  Enugu  state.  Three  research questions and hypothesis tested at 0.05 percent level of significance guided the study. Frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation were employed  to  answer  the  research  questions  while  Z-test  statistics  were used to test the hypothesis.

It was found that privatization of unipetrol has led to efficient and improved  cost performance, and proper accountability to share holders. We conclude and recommend among others that effective cost  performance  and  proper  accountability  to  share  holders  is  very necessary in privatized public enterprises and that government should prive the entire necessary enabling environment for the privatized company to carry out their activities without unnecessarily increasing their cost.