AN ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES IN EDO STATE A CASE STUDY OF EDO STATE URBAN WATER BOARD BENIN CITY
in PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PROJECTS on September 1, 2020CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The important of Public Enterprises in modern society can not be over emphasized and in order for the state to function properly the public enterprises therein must be in good shape, as the all around development of the society especially a developing one depends largely on their survival.
The rationale behind the establishment of public enterprises mainly on the development of the national economy and the betterment of the lives of the citizenry. Also it is pertinent to state that, it is the purpose to be achieved that actually givers birth to the organization Joseph E. Imhanlahimgin recall sharm mp (1985:85) who state that “the purpose must be sufficiently strong or big or dissimilar to be undertaken by any existing department or ministry of Government” that is to say public enterprises are set up by government for various purpose.
For instance, we have public enterprises like Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that there is constant power supply. There is also the Edo State Urban Water Board whose major duty is to ensure that portable water is provided for use in the state. there are yet others like the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigeria Police.
However, there is almost a general consensus on the belief that the aim of setting up some of these public enterprises has been defeated. This is so because, despite the millions of naira that is invested in them by the government, their performance is constantly on the decline and very much below standard, a situation which has become a major source of concern to both the government and the governed, as the decline in the activities of these public corporations constitute a very high burden on government resources.
As has earlier implied. The confidence originally reposed by the government and the citizenry in these public enterprises has waned tremendously as a result of their inability to live up to expectation. This situation has led to an outery for privatization over the years for research has shown that privatization will lead to better performance, of these enterprises. It will be observed that most of these government owned or public corporations have either folded up or ground to a halt, while others are ailing and on the verge or total collapse. Hence this project work is aimed at taking an analytic look at these public enterprises, so as to ascertain those factors that pose a hindrance to their effective performance. The Edo State Urban Water Board which is the case study used in this project work happens to be one of the ailing public enterprises.
Like every other public enterprises, the effective and efficient performance of the board depend largely on both the human and material resources, and the effective management of these resources including the recruitment motivation of personnel and the provision of standard equipment.
