The Finance Ministry proposed the seven existing State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) under the ministry to change some of their mandates as per the government’s priority in the 12th Five Year Plan.
This was reflected during the first-ever SOE conference held today in the capital following the review by a committee formed by the Finance Ministry. And accordingly, seven SOEs with social mandates have been identified. The government is planning to introduce reforms responsible for managing them to improve the SOEs’ performance and sustainability. These reforms include allowing mandates and institutional frameworks of SOE to change.
The seven enterprises include Bhutan Postal Corporation Limited, Bhutan Livestock Development Corporation Limited, Food Corporation of Bhutan Limited, Farm Machinery Corporation Limited, Green Bhutan Corporation Limited, National Housing and Development Corporation Limited and Rural Enterprise Development Corporation Limited. According to the ministry, the mandates of these enterprises are not broad, unlike the other 10 SOEs. It was also reflected that these enterprises had a few duplications of mandates similar to private sectors. The redefining of their mandates will allow the enterprises to sustain and fulfil social mandates as well.
The prime minister said SOEs mandates are a little sidetracked.
“I personally feel that at the end of the day, there is a need to have a commercial aspect of creating SOEs. if it is solely social mandates, I think RGoB should take it so that the mandates of the SOE is not diluted. So at this front, I want to draw a line between how much of social mandates should the SOEs offer and how much of the commercial mandates should they take in. In the social state like Bhutan, SOEs that are heavily mandated on the social front should be taken up by the government and then every SOE I personally feel must have a commercial arm to meet their minimum day to day expenses.” said Dr Lotay Tshering, the Prime Minister.
Following the recommendations from the conference, the proposed changes will later be presented to the government for revision. There are seventeen SOEs registered with the Finance Ministry.
