review of global good practice in countries with similar development challenges as Kenya identifies five roles for Government Owned Entities (GOEs) in the national development effort. First, government owned entities are important in promoting or accelerating economic growth and development. Second, these entities are critical to building the capability and technical capacity of the state in facilitating and/or promoting national development. Third, they are important instruments in improving the delivery of public services, including meeting the basic needs of citizens. Fourth, they have been variously applied to the creation of good and widespread employment opportunities in various jurisdictions. Fifth, GOEs are useful for targeted and judicious building of international partnerships. In enabling states achieve the above goals, GOEs play a major role in enabling social and economic transformation of the economies in which they operate.
In Kenya, GOEs have been established and played these roles in diverse ways. The experience has been in some cases successful and in others not so. In the recent past Kenya has set itself an ambitious, but achievable development agenda, reflected in Vision 2030. This is further articulated in its Second Medium Term Plan, 2013 – 2017, which is the key implementation instrument. Faced with a challenging and fluid regional as well as global context, it is clear that it cannot be business as usual, if we are going to quickly and effectively address our development challenges. It will require significant transformation in the way we identify and apply, inter alia, our people, natural, financial and organisational resources. One of the key policy instruments that governments world over have applied in supporting national development have been GOEs, in Kenya referred to variously as parastatals, state corporations or semi-autonomous government agencies in some cases. These too, will need to be transformed for them to fully play their significant role in the national development process.
The Presidential Taskforce on Parastatal Reforms (PTPRs) was tasked with the responsibility of interrogating the policies on the management and governance of Kenya’s parastatals with the aim of determining how best they would contribute to the pursuit of national development aspirations, facilitating the transformation of our country into a great land of prosperity and opportunity for all. In conducting this exercise, the PTPRs was exhorted by H.E. The President to always ask, (a) "where does Wanjiku stand in this detailed framework? (b) Is the public sector working for her at all? (c) Is she getting value for her precious investment?" This the Taskforce kept uppermost in their mind.