Private Management and Performance of Public Enterprises: a Case of KSWL, 1996 - 2005

Privatization of state-owned enterprises has become an important phenomenon in both developed and developing countries. Privatization of state-owned enterprises has been an integral part of structural adjustment programmes - the economic rehabilitation Uganda has undertaken since the early 1980s. Cook and Kirkpatrick (1988: 3) define privatization as "a range of different policy initiatives intended to change the balance between the public and private sector and the services they provide." They distinguish three main approaches to privatization: a change in the ownership of the enterprise, liberalization or deregulation, and a transfer of goods or services from the public to the private sector even if the government retains ultimate responsibility for supplying the service.