The author of an Asian Development Bank report says state-owned enterprises in Samoa and Fiji have been returning zero capital on equity and assets because of the influence of politicians.
The recently released report shows that state-owned enterprises, or SOEs, continue to strain economies, with Samoa and Fiji producing the poorest performance results of the nine countries studied.
Lore Darcy says both countries have a good legal framework around the practises of SOEs, but have struggled to implement the law.
"The influence of politicians on board decisions seems to persist so they're just really having a hard time being effective at implementing their legislation. Fiji's portfolio is much larger. I think that the reasons for its poor performance are similar to Samoa in that you know, you just don't have a political will to extract commercial returns sustainably from the SOEs and to hold Directors and Managers accountable for that."
Lore Darcy of the ADB
