Bill on parastatals to be tabled in Parliament in two weeks

The Institute of Certified Public Secretaries of Kenya (ICPSK) has suggested that the autonomy of Government parastatals should be enhanced to protect them from any kind of political interference, enhance good governance and ensure losses in the institutions are stopped.

Over 200 members out of the 3,000 ICPSK members are in Mombasa for their three-day, annual international conference to deliberate on issues of governance, where the problems bedeviling State corporations have taken centre stage.

The institute has raised concerns that the Presidential decree dubbed Mwongozo, which spells out the Code of Governance for State corporations, was not been followed during the recent appointment of board members to several parastatals.

A senior advisor to President Uhuru Kenyatta and head of Constitutional Legislative Affairs, Abdikadir Mohamed, said the Government Owned Entities (GOE) Bill, 2014 would be tabled in Parliament in two weeks' time.

The bill, he said would reduce the number of parastatals by 30 per cent from the current 300 to 200 and give the boards autonomy to run the institutions like private firms.

"The Government has been forced to bail out some firms, while others like the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) are running into huge losses. We want to make sure that Government corporations that run like other commercial entities are left to operate like private companies," said Mr Mohamed.

TWO TERMS

He said that the number of board members would be reduced to a maximum of seven or nine with a two-term limit (three years each term), while the chief executive officer would serve for a two-terms (four years each term).

"We had a situation where a parastatal had 29 board members and 35 employees in the Agriculture sector. We are through with merging the parastatals in the Agriculture sector and we are moving to others," said Mohamed.

The Government has been forced to bailout several parastatals facing financial problems with the publicly listed Mumias Sugar Company recently receiving a Sh1 billion capital injection from the State.

Public institutions that operate as commercial entities should be independent with boards of directors given powers to hire and fire the chief executive.