IMF How To Notes

How to Improve the Financial Oversight of Public Corporations

By Richard I Allen, Miguel A Alves

November 23, 2016

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Richard I Allen, and Miguel A Alves. How to Improve the Financial Oversight of Public Corporations, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2016) accessed October 10, 2024

Summary

Many studies have highlighted how failures of public corporations (otherwise known as state-owned enterprises) can result in huge economic and fiscal costs. To contain the risks associated with these costs, an effective regime for the financial supervision and oversight of public corporations should be put in place. This note discusses the legal, institutional, and procedural arrangements that governments need to oversee the financial operations of their public corporations, ensure accountability for their performance, and manage the fiscal risks they present. In particular, it recommends that governments should focus their surveillance on public corporations that are large in relation to the economy, create fiscal risks, are not profitable, are unstable financially, or are heavily dependent on government subsidies or guarantees.

Subject: Business enterprises, Central banks, Contingent liabilities, Economic sectors, Fiscal risks, Labor, Public employment, Public financial management (PFM), Quasi-fiscal operations

Keywords: Africa, Business enterprises, Contingent liabilities, Equity holding, FADHTN, Fiscal risks, Government entity, Government priority, Government request, Government unit, HTN, Management board, Oversight regime, Ownership policy, Political orientation, Public corporation sector, Public employment, Quasi-fiscal operations, Trading enterprise, Well-functioning internal audit regime

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    21

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    How-To Note No. 2016/005

  • Stock No:

    FADHTNEA2016005

  • ISBN:

    9781475551983

  • ISSN:

    2522-7912