Reforms needed in SOEs: Rosso

The National Business

By LULU MARK
REFORMS aimed to enhancing profitability are needed in state owned enterprises (SOEs) to grow the national economy, Acting Prime Minister John Rosso says.
Rosso said the economy could not develop and progress if the service industries were not reliably functioning.
“To support our economy, we have embarked upon major reforms of our SOE to improve their overall performance in terms of service delivery and revenue generation to complement the national budget,” he said.
He said these reforms were also intended to ensure:

  • PROFITABILITY;
  • IMPROVED services in the airline industry, water, electricity, and telecommunications
  • INDEPENDENCE of the SOEs; and,
  • CREATE gender balance in appointment of the board of directors to encourage good governance.

“In 2021, Telikom and bmobile were merged into a single retail business allowing our government to approve the partial privatisation of the merged entity, to raise much needed capital to support the national transmission network project,” he said.
“This was followed by the merging of Water PNG and Eda Ranu.
“The reforms exercise has also expanded to include the restructuring of the PNG Power Ltd and establishment of National Energy Authority (NEA) to regulate energy development that will see the rollout of the National Electrification Rollout Programme.
“This effort has been complemented by our development partners through the PNG Electrification Programme (PEP) by connecting 70 per cent households by 2027.”
Rosso said apart from this, Air Niugini had embarked on major recovery programmes to bolster service levels.