Abstract

In the year 1996 the Government of Malawi (GoM) passed the Public Enterprises (Privatization) Act (PEPA) which it subsequently applied in the privatization of a majority of its State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) including David Whitehead and Sons (DWS) Ltd. In 2011, PEPA was repealed and replaced with the Public-Private Partnership Act (PPPA) which was intended to improve the legal mechanisms for facilitating privatization of state corporations. Using the PPPA, the government proceeded to privatize a number of enterprises, including the Malawi Savings Bank. The privatization of DWS and MSB generated significant public debate around the question whether the processes had taken sufficient account of the public interest as required by corporate governance principles governing public enterprises. Despite the said high public interest in the matter, there has never been any systematic academic study of the issue to provide an evidence-based response to the question. This dissertation seeks to fill that gap by presenting and discussing the findings which emerged from research which compared the effects PEPA and PPPA on the safeguarding of the public interest in the privatization of public enterprises. The research uses a comparative study of the privatization DWS and the privatization of MSB. The main finding that emerged from the doctrinal study of the question was that the PPPA did not significantly improve on the PEPA with respect to the provision of statutory protection of the public interest in the privatization of state-owned enterprises to meet the standards set by corporate governance. The paper thus suggests a revision of the conceptual, institutional and legal framework in PPPA to align it with corporate governance principles that safeguard the public interest so as to inform future privatizations.

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School	: School of Law, Economics and Government
Issued Date	: 2017

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