MoF SOEs

The 13 State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) under the Ministry of Finance have always been in a strange no man’s land for many years.

They are not government departments and hence neither civil servants or even public servants.

On the other hand, they are not a part of the well resourced and well run DHI companies.

The Budget report every year reports the huge losses made by these SOEs, and the huge subsides spent on them.

The Economic and Finance Committee of the Parliament pointed to the losses made by the SOEs and their duplication and even recommended four of them be closed down.

The SOE Annual Report of 2021 by the MoF recommends not giving any more ‘free money’ to these SOEs.

One more nail in the coffin comes from the decision of the MoF to not include its SOEs in the pay hike, but instead has asked them to raise their own revenues. There is a warning that those who do not turn around will be shut down.

It is true that many of the MoF SOEs are financially not sustainable. They lack a proper corporate culture and some don’t even have the system of accountability that is enforced by the RCSC for civil servants.

In the way forward, the SOEs have to do some tough soul searching and come up with major reforms in terms of organizational changes and most importantly, changes in their work culture.

It is not correct to label all SOEs as the same or even the employees within them. There are good and bad SOEs and some employees are very hardworking, while there are also those who make the laziest civil servants look like busy beavers.

On the other hand, the inconvenient truth of many of the SOEs with social mandates like FCB, BLDC and others is that they are subject to frequent political and unsustainable tasks. There is also political interference in many as they lack the legal protection of DHI or a RCSC.  

The third factor that does not work in the favour of the SOEs is that the field or the market they operate in will never be lucrative enough for them to do well. In fact, the creation of some of the newer ones are mistakes in themselves.

The SOEs are in an unenviable position right now. They don’t have the support of their parent ministry, Parliament has recommended harsh measures and there has been no public outrage on the tough words used against SOEs by politicians.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones.
Rutherford B. Hayes