Muthuvel behind reform

By CLARISSA MOI
THE amendment to the Kumul Consolidated Holdings Act was to ensure it gives power to state-owned entities (SOEs) to make independent decisions, State Enterprises Minister Sasindran Muthuvel says.
Muthuvel told the PNG Institute of Directors’ “Women on Board” breakfast in Port Moresby yesterday that this was part of the reform undertaken to reduce political interference in the SOEs.
“We have started the much needed reform in our SOEs,” he said.
“Most of these State enterprises are influenced by various personal interests.
“So first and foremost, for us is to remove or reduce that political influence by way of amending the KCH Act.
“KCH is the holding company which is the shareholder for all the eight state enterprises.
“There are few amendments which allowed the SOEs to go directly to the minister to push whatever decisions they want to get to Parliament.”
Muthuvel said they were not changing everything at once.
“But we did change for PNG Ports Ltd which is truly based on merit basis and the appointment of KCH managing director,” he said.
“Despite the challenges, we manage to do it transparently and independently and the outcome is Isikeli Taureka.
“The reform started from there by bringing people of merit.
“This is not going to be an easy task.
“The most challenging ones, based on cash flow issues and other challenges based on operations, are Telikom PNG Ltd, PNG Power Ltd, Air Niugini and Water PNG.
“We are trying to merge those two entities (Eda Ranu and Water PNG) and there are a lot of doubts and questions as to the quality of that in Port Moresby by merging those two entities.
“There are also interests from people not interested in the merging, but that is part of our reform.
“Amend the KCH Act in a way that gives power to manage effectively all those SOEs and also to bring independent and qualified directors on board.
“We need to give them the independent commercial decision making power.
“Once we get this formula right, I think the rest of things will fall (in place).”