Some Options for Improving the Governance of State-Owned Electricity Utilities
Most government-owned utilities in developing countries perform poorly when judged as providers of electricity, in part because politicians and officials use their power, not to encourage the utilities to increase sales, improve the collection of b...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Publications & Research |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/02/5325767/some-options-improving-governance-state-owned-electricity-utilities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21603 |
| Summary: | Most government-owned utilities in
developing countries perform poorly when judged as providers
of electricity, in part because politicians and officials
use their power, not to encourage the utilities to increase
sales, improve the collection of bills, and cut costs, but
to transfer resources to politically influential groups and,
sometimes, extract bribes. To improve the performance of
government-owned electricity utilities as electricity
utilities, rules and practices must be changed in a way that
reduces politicians' willingness or ability to use the
utilities for political purposes and subjects the utilities
to new sources of pressure to perform well. This paper
considers ways in which a government might seek to achieve
this goal without privatizing. It focuses on changes in
corporate governance-that is, changes in the rules that
structure the relationship between the company and the
government as its owner. It concludes that governments
should be cautious about the prospects for improvement
without privatization-since, among other things, creating a
truly arms-length relationship between the government and
the utility will always be difficult as long as the
government remains the utility's owner-but that
improvements in corporate governance are still worth pursuing. |
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