AMAN Coalition for Accountability and Integrity held a workshop discussion on the potential methods for improving the legislative and policy structure of the government-owned companies to ensure their integrity, transparency and accountability.
Representatives from the HighJudicial Council, the Legislative Council, the Electricity Regulatory Council, Palestine Investment Fund, the Palestinian electricity transmission Ltd, Ministries of Finance and Justice, the State Audit & Administrative Control Bureau, the Palestine Capital Market Authority, the Palestinian Federation of Industries, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ramallah &AlBireh Gov., Birzeit Institute of Law, Right to Live Society and Shams Society have attended the workshop discussion.
Mr. AzmiShuaibi, AMAN’s BoD Anti-Corruption consultant, opened the discussion by referring to the report on the public companies which was prepared by the Coalition to concentrate the efforts devoted by the decision makers to refine and improve the legal, institutional and policy structure of the government companies with a view to ensuring their integrity, transparency and accountability.
Mr. Moen Al-Barghougty presented the key points of his report, shedding light on the institutional, legal and monitoring the paramount needs for regulating government-owned companies; especially, that the Palestinian experience still amateur in this field.
Mr. Abdel Hamid Al Abwah, PIF representative, added that the PIF has achieved considerable development in terms of adherence to the standards of governance. He also responded to some of the comments included the report on the need for publishing the regulations of the PIF by reiterating that competent legislative authorities are the only entity to shoulder such responsibility, yet not PIF.
In the same context, Eng. Basil Abeljawad, PETL representative, raised some of the challenges that face PETL, in term of misunderstanding its peculiarity and function by some official authorities. He also emphasized the considerable need for establishing an ad-hoc unit under the umbrella of the Cabinet to follow up this type of companies.
His honor Judge Nassar Mansour, HJC General Secretary, marked the grave need for a precise use of the concepts and terminologies related to public companies, the extent to which general laws could be devised by the Government to be applied on this idiosyncratic type of companies, in other words does government apply the public or the private Law on these companies.
Mr. Salah Awdeh, A representative from the private sector, has valued the report and affirmed the necessity for regulating the government companies; especially, the aspects related to the mechanisms employed to appoint the board of directors and other administrative employees. He also spotlighted the need for a broader general secretariat for this type of companies.
Similarly, Mr. FuadAlmalkiey, a legal advisor at the MoF, urged the authorities to issue a public law governing public companies and takes into consideration the idiosyncrasy of each company as per its bylaw.
Besides, Mr. Ashraf Abu Hayiah from Al-Shams Society single out the need for the Legislative Council to reclaim its role in monitoring the government policies , and defining the sphere of activities of the public companies.
Participants have put forward several recommendations, foremost of which:
• Enactment of a law on the public (government-owned) companies defines the general guidelines for the government involvement in the economic development and the management of the basic service sectors.
• Standard financial and administrative regulations for public companies should be issued by the Cabinet and applied to all government companies to ensure to avoid the duality of regulations.
• The Role of the companies controller should be reclaimed and activated, thus, all the registered companies should adhere to its judgments as stipulated by the Company Law.
• An ad-hoc unit should be established within the Cabinet to follow-up and facilitate the work of the public companies.
• Officials in a position of public authority shall not occupy the presidency of any public companies. Furthermore, neither the chairperson nor the board members shall occupy the position of the executive chairperson of the company at the same time.
• The National Water Company shall be incorporated and registered by a decision made by the Cabinet. The decision should define its capital and board of directors.
• All public companies should upload and publish their bylaws and work manuals on their official websites.
• Each public company should develop reports, approve an annual budget and publicly disclose it as soft and hard copy.
This project funded by EU 
