The managerial and financial problems of the railway in colonial Nigeria

Abstract

This study focuses on the administration and management aspects of the railway as a colonial public enterprise. Its policy implementation problems which are examined relate to government’s appropriation of its profits, recurrent deficits, subsidies, pricing, and loans. A committee that investigated the problems in the 1920s recommended an immediate commercialization or privatization of the enterprise to be viable. But the critical economic and strategic implications of this panacea for the British trade and colonial interests led to the official rejection of the proposal. The conflicting views of the colonial administration and the management are critically assessed and the raison d’etre for failure of any compromise is well articulated. The paper is divided into sections which examine: the pre- amalgamation of the railway finances and the partial autonomy that the railway management endured, despite official denunciation of debureacratisation, privatization and commercialization. The paper concludes that the question of privatization and commercialization has been an enduring
characteristic of the management and administration of our public enterprises since the colonial period and that the problems of our public enterprises today are outcomes of a historical process as well as part of our colonial heritage.