Oracle9i New Feature Series: Object Privileges by Administrator!

Finally Oracle realized that DBA should have the privilege to grant object privileges. From Oracle9i Release 2 onwards, you need not login as the owner of the object to grant an object privilege. In the earlier releases since most of the time I do not remember the schema password, had to login as the schema using the "back door"!

A new system privilege, "GRANT ANY OBJECT PRIVILEGE" is introduced to control the delegation of an owner's right to grant and revoke object privileges.

In pre-Oracle9iR2 databases, to grant an object privilege on an object that belonged to another user, you should have granted the privilege with the GRANT option.

GRANT ANY PRIVILEGE still gives the grantee privilege to grant any system privilege.