Luanda - The Institute for Management of Assets and State Participation (IGAPE) said that it is developing a portal for the public business sector (SEP) to allow the automation of the process of rendering accounts by companies, the institution’s manager Augusto Kalikemala said on Sunday.
Under the implementation of financial reporting and transparency, the same instrument of accountability will serve as an evaluator of companies, based on the automatic report presented, in addition to defining the risks that the institution presents.
According to the Roadmap for Reform in the Public Business Sector (SEP), which began in 2021, the creation of a general sector supervisory board is planned to bring together the various interests in the performance of the companies.
IGAPE manager, who presented the Roadmap for the Reform of the SEP to the XII Extended Council of the Ministry of Finance, said the financial reporting of companies is very inconsistent and tends to be of low quality.
"In addition to the diagnosis made at the SEP, it was concluded that the financial and economic performance of the companies is poor, which successively present negative net results and an increasingly degrading financial situation", he added.
In addition, he added, there are significant liquidity constraints, from the point of view of productivity, with a major impact of tax activities, affecting the performance of companies.
He admitted that there is inconsistency in the objectives and evaluation models of the public business sector, which are always insistent or insufficient.
To this reason, he said, "all these factors led to the need to implement the roadmap for the reform of the public business sector, to make it more efficient and objective".
Recent data released by IGAPE, to which ANGOP had access, show that the net results of the Angolan public business sector, with a weight of 92% in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), were almost 200 billion negative kwanzas, in 2020.
It was these results and other aspects that led the Executive to approve the above reform roadmap for the SEP, which includes some axes, in addition to financial reporting and transparency, the resizing of the State's presence in the SEP, management and monitoring efficiency and mitigation of fiscal risks.
The resizing is intended to segregate and clarify the main role of the State, as shareholders, supervisor and regulator.
It is intended, still with resizing, to deliver the initiative for the production of goods and services to the market, a greater liberalisation of the economic initiative to State agents, said Augusto Kalikemala.
"We want to change the level of State intervention in the public business sector, becoming only public companies and commercial companies with public capital", he highlighted.
Simplification of the business fabric
According to him, the country currently has a list of public companies, companies in the public domain and minority public holdings, a number that is intended to be simplified.
To this purpose, he points to the privatisation programme as a milestone in this resizing process, which has already allowed the sale of 85 State assets and holdings.
As part of the reforms, according to the official, the Executive wants to reduce the number of actors to two, ie public companies and Public Capital Commercial Society (SCCP).
Meanwhile, tools and criteria are being created that allow the description of those that should be considered public companies and Commercial Societies of Public Capital, a work that is already in progress.
Public Capital Commercial Companies (SCCP) are those that have an operational, commercially viable activity and that can compete with the market, with private actors, but for that they need greater autonomy and flexibility in their action model. .
Public companies, on the other hand, will continue as a public business sector.
But for that, there is a set of aspects to be taken into account for their permanence in the public sector, such as, for example, if it provides an essential public service, if it is associated with a strategic interest or if it corresponds to an activity that is part of into a natural or legal monopoly.
Recruitment committee
The ongoing reforms will lead to the revision of the Basic Law of the SEP, which is expected to enter into force in 2024.
The framework provides for a management recruitment and selection committee that will identify professionals for public companies.
Augusto Kalikemala clarifies that for Commercial Companies with Public Capital, the management model is closely associated with that of private companies, in which the State is a shareholder, but represented by the Holding Company (SGPS) to be created in November this year .
A strategic committee will also be created for the SCCPs, with a view to redefining the management and professional model of their managers, expanding their autonomy.
In public companies, in which the shareholding will be exercised by the Ministry of Finance, there is a supervisory board that will monitor the Board of Directors and the supervisory bodies.
