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Privatization: World Bank
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"Privatization is a very sensitive word in that region of the world," said Mehdi Varzi, a former National Iranian Oil Co. official who runs a petroleum consultancy in London. "Most OPEC members jealously guard their control over the oil sector."
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Privatization is on the rise. More than 8,500 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in over 80 countries have been privatized in the past 12 years, 2,000 in countries that borrow from the World Bank.
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The Mexican privatization program began in the wake of the Mexican debt crisis in 1982 when the IMF conditioned lending on privatization. The implementation of that program was followed by a series of loans from both the IMF and World Bank geared to create optimum conditions in Mexico for foreign investors. Since then around 1,000 state-owned enterprises have been sold since 1983. This divestiture... rather than leading to increased competition and economic efficiency, has led to a striking increase in the concentration of assets and income that even the World Bank admits privately. In a 1991 internal audit report, it
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Israel is on its way to privatization. The banking sector is amongst the first ones to take a step in this direction. Bank Leumi was in the market recently and attracted bids from several players. Bidder names include strategic investors like Lev Leviev, IDB and Bill Davidson and ... financial contenders like UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. However the winner was an American Hedge fund, Cerberus-Gabriel.
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Such shifts in approach become all the more important as the pace of privatization picks up across the African continent. Although some African countries began modest privatization programmes in the 1980s, it was not until the 1990s that the numbers increased significantly. A 1998 World Bank study, Privatization in Africa (written by Mr. Campbell White and Ms. Anita Bhatia), reported that nearly 2,700 privatization transactions had taken place in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 1996. In the three years since then, there have been hundreds more.
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On the eve of the new Assembly's inauguration, the right-wing El Diario de Hoy added to the controversy over privatization. It divulged the existence of confidential papers signed by the President of the Central Reserve Bank, Roberto Orellana, and Treasury Minister Manuel Enrique Hinds. They promised the IMF that 75% of the proceeds of ANTEL's sale would go to pay El Salvador's debt.
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