Rationalise para(site)statals now

Senior officials, often shielded from scrutiny, were grilled by Members of Parliament in an unprecedented show of democratic oversight. The revelations from these sessions have been sobering. They confirm what many had suspected: a public sector riddled with dysfunction, operating in silos, weighed down by poor coordination, corruption, and weak accountability.

But if the rot uncovered within government departments was alarming, what lies within state-owned enterprises (SOEs), or parastatals as they are commonly known, could be even worse. Calls are mounting for the Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises (CSBSE)—PAC’s sister committee—to follow suit and broadcast its proceedings live. The CSBSE has traditionally been toothless and ineffective, its recommendations ignored, and its work undermined by absentee members and uncooperative agency heads. Yet it is precisely within the SOE sector that urgent reform is needed.