control foreign management. Packard, for instance, argues that
‘for the most part, the members of boards are civil servants. Their
experience, together with their attitudes, militates against too
detailed questioning or understanding of management . . . The
most likely result is that review of management actions by the
board of directors will be perfunctory, so that the board in effect
abdicates any responsibility for shaping the operations and
development of the enterprise.’3!

The descretion of boards of directors or, if one accepts
Packard’s arguments, parastatal management, has in fact been
severely curtailed in recent years. Uniform terms and conditions of
employment and a national incomes policy have limited their
ability to fix wages and salaries and to compete for staff; the
products of several parastatals are subject to national price control;
and the investment and day to day expenditure decisions of
parastatals are being scrutinised increasingly by the banks which
also dictate overseas profit remittance rates. Management
agreements are now carefully screened by Devplan and the
banking system.

The recent credit squeeze has also been accompanied by a
growing concern over the lack of control over parastatal decisions.
Two years ago the Planning Ministry complained that ‘there are
serious data deficiencies that limit the forward planning, par-
ticularly financial planning, of several parastatals . . . we have
inadequate knowledge of sources of finance, for that sector, such
as the need for borrowing from banking institutions. Parastatal ex-
ternal borrowing also remains partly autonomous and very little is
known in the aggregate about the generation and uses of funds by
parastatals including their subsidiaries.®> This problem still
remains but some action is being taken-to ensure that internally
generated surpluses, at least, are centrally controlled. In the last
budget the Minister for Finance argued that ‘In a situation where
there are conflicting claims for available resources, the retention of
surpluses by parastatals does not necessarily ensure that resources
are channelled to the priority areas according to national
requirements . . . The object should be to ensure that each
operational unit must justify its demands for retention of surpluses
on the basis of its operating and capital programme and in the
context of national requirements.?® He then went on to announce
that in future all parastatal surpluses would be compulsorily paid

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