Cyprus: Technical Assistance Report–Strengthening the Governance and Oversight of State-Owned Enterprises

This paper presents Cyprus’ technical assistance report on strengthening the governance and oversight of state-owned enterprises (SOE). Cyprus' government has implemented measures to enhance financial oversight and strengthen the governance of SOEs over several years. The ongoing reforms have already yielded positive results. Additional measures are needed to strengthen SOEs corporate governance and accountability practices. Establishing and regularly updating a consolidated inventory of public entities is essential to ensure SOE accountability. Good SOE governance requires a coordinated and sequential approach to reforms. Coordination among various stakeholders and decision makers is paramount and calls for developing and publishing a reform strategy with benchmarks to track progress. A SOE ownership policy should also be developed. This policy could outline the state's ownership rationale and define the roles and responsibilities of the institutions involved in SOE oversight and governance to provide clarity on the objectives and guidelines for effective ownership and management of SOEs. The policy should set clear accountability lines of respective agencies involved in the SOE ownership, governance, and oversight process. Their responsibilities would depend on the chosen ownership model the government will decide.