ERA OF FAILED STATE ENTERPRISES TO END - IDC
THE era of failed State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) companies will end in the next three years as most of them are expected to begin making profits, Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) Chief Executive Officer, Mateyo Kaluba, has said.
According to Mr Kaluba, SOEs that were currently loss making would in the next three years transform into profit-making due to reforms currently being implemented by the IDC.
Mr Kaluba said in an interview in Lusaka recently that about seven enterprises were in the next three years expected to change from being underperforming to profit making.
He said at least 10 SOEs had changed from loss making to profit-making positions from the time IDC started
operations in 2015.
“I am very sure in the next three years the era of SOEs as failed enterprises will totally be history.
Their losses are falling drastically and balance sheets are strengthening rapidly so we are confident of the reforms we are undertaking,” he said.
“This is again proof that our reforms are working. We have another six or seven enterprises where in the next three years they will be different type of companies,” Mr Kaluba said.
And responding to calls by Finance Minister, Bwalya Ng’andu, to sanction management of underperforming SOEs, Mr Kaluba said, “It is up to the board to live up to the expectation we have agreed with them and if they can’t deliver on those expectation, then naturally we must dissolve the board.”
Mr Kaluba said IDC was holding SOEs accountable for the performance contracts that the group was doing with their boards.
“We have received the directive from the Minister of Finance with both hands. It is consistent with what the board of IDC has guided us.”
Mr Kaluba explained that the call was in line with directive given to them by the IDC board to ensure that SOEs drastically reduced wasteful expenditure that was not targeted at their core business.
Last week, Dr Ng’andu warned loss making SOEs that Government will not continue to pour resources in bottomless pits that do not provide value to the public.