CONCEPTUAL DISCOURSE
In
African and Nigeria in particular, despite efforts been made to achieve
absolute autonomy in management of public enterprises to achieve effectiveness
and efficiency, there are several external control which government uses
intervene the with day-to-day managerial activities in Nigeria. In this regard,
it is important acknowledge those steps in which government employed
intervening in the activities public enterprises. They however, take the forms
control through the legislature political / materials control, treasury
control, external audit of account and
miscellaneous bureaucratic control
etc.
MULTIPLICITY OF CONTROL
The
challenges of autonomy in public enterprises, they are as followings:
One
of the time–tested methods of making public enterprises accountable to external
bodies is that of legislation control. As the embodiment of the peoples will,
parliament can legitimately claim to be acting in the name and interests of the
owners of these enterprises. It performs its role, first, by scrutinizing
enactments specifying the mandate of public enterprises, defining their
structure, and outlining the preferred management and accounting system. In
addition to passing the draft legislation into enabling laws/acts, parliament
exercise control over the activities of the enterprises by making it mandatory
for the enterprises to table their annual reports and accounts before it. Whether
many of its members would be able to make sense out of the accounting information, statistical data, graphs and
charts, is of course another matter. The accountants may worry account income
and expenditure accounts, while the statisticians look at the statistical
trends and projections with their magnifying glasses. For the majority of
parliamentarians, what is likely to be of interest is the range of amenities
and infrastructure projects located in their constituencies.
MINISTERIAL / POLITICAL CONTROL
This
is a process by which the executive arm of government exercises control over
the activities of public enterprises through the supervising or parent
ministries, it influences the structure and management practices of the
enterprises. These the responsibility of the ministries to the public
enterprises and they as follows:
-
They
supervise the draft and cope of each enterprises
-
Recommending
to government the appointment of some person as chairman and members of the
enterprises board of directors
-
Participating
in the selection of the chief executive and the top management team of the
enterprises
-
They
equally serve as a channel of communication between the government and its
agencies on one hand and the enterprise on the other hand.
-
Firstly,
the supervising ministry has the opportunity to control the enterprises at the
inauguration stage. These means, at the
time when ideal is coming to emerge as to the desirability for establishing a
public enterprises. However, apart from examining the ideas and collection of
data, they equally have the responsibility of ensuring that enabling laws is
drafted. After a public enterprises has been established finally, its
management would wish to amend the enabling laws to reflect changes in
circumstances, and this implies that supervising ministry could have to be
closely involved.
-
Ministerial
control does not stop at framing of enabling laws; they equally exercised
control on the appointment of the chairman and member of each public
enterprise. On the political side, the primary interest of pure political
appointees is likely to be the material benefits of incumbency (contracts,
fringe, benefits, and jobs for kinsman). Instead of providing the much –needed
leadership in the area of policy formulation, the political appointees are apt
to cover the career managers authority and functions. The political element,
have there vital function apart from the strategic planning function they
perform, they both represent the interest of their enterprises at the highest level
of government. Secondly, their mere
presence on the board confers political legitimacy on decision taken by
management and as agent of the government. They are in a position to ensure
that the decision taken by the board and the management are inline with
government general policy.
Government
also controls the enterprise by determining the composition of the top
management. At times certain categories of appointment area classified as
political. They are said to be political since the politicians decides who
holds such appointments, and issues of political sensitivity, loyalty, ethnic
balance etc have to be taken into account.
TREASURY
CONTROL
The
power wielded by the treasuring is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways
in regulating the activities of the public enterprises, through the treasuring;
the government gives grants and subvention to parastatales. The power to
approve capital project and under write loan serves as an effective weapon
against non-viable projects. Perhaps if the power had been exercised earlier,
it would have been impossible for many public enterprises to incur the huge
external debt that are creating serious problem for many African government
today.
EXTERNAL
AUDITY
The
external audit of accounts and management system provide the government and the
public with an over –view of how a public enterprise has allocated the
resources entrusted to it. Even in the civil service, the audit function is
carried out by the comptroller and the auditor general. His office, is however,
beset with many problems. First, the office tends to be under –staffed. This
makes it impossible for it to catch up with the backlog of work in ministries
and departments. Secondly, to expect the
few over worked staff in the comptrollers department to audit the account of
public enterprises, it means, asking too much. In this case, since they (the
comptroller staffs) have been trained to audit civil service account, they are
likely to be ill prepared for the business oriented accounts in parastatal organization.
MISCELLANEOUS
CONTROL
Government
has the potential to control public enterprises in many other ways. This might
come through government decision to raise tariff of direct that commodity price
offered to small –scale farmers be increased. These and other forms of
ministerial control can serve as useful purpose of they are designed to achieve
specific objective such as the objective of public accountability, managerial
efficiency and effectiveness or if they are expected to contribute to the realization
of rationally defined social objectives.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Whatever
problem there are in balancing control with autonomy in public enterprises are
simplified by the fact the weapon of control are also potential facilitators of
autonomy and self government, legislative control for instance, can be preceded
by, and combine with, a clear articulation of objectives, ministerial control
can go hand in hand with careful attention to the selection of board and
management teams. Treasuring controls
are not antithetical to efforts designed to install sound management and
financial control system.
External
audit can proceed along side international audits, there would be no need to
second guess enterprises board and management (or take unilateral decision
which conflict with theirs) if government were to increase the opportunities
for dialogue on policy decisions and the criteria for arriving at them.