Statistic study on the possibility of implementing corporate governance in public enterprises with Local Administrative Units (LAU) as the majority shareholders

The option of governmental monitoring of the management of certain economic entities whose capital/patrimony is in totality or in majority, directly or indirectly, owned by central or local public authorities stemmed from the inappropriateness of the current laws regarding commercial entities when applied to majority state-owned public companies. This incompatibility creates some advantages for the public businesses in question, which refer to privileged positions on the market for certain (especially public) services to the detriment of those provided by private entities. The most harmful consequence of this state of affairs is the ineffective management of public money. To this, one may add disloyal competition towards private economic entities that are active in the same line of work: state-owned enterprises enjoy the favour of being granted execution, service provision or supply contracts by means of direct award, not as a result of public bids. The issuing of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 109 of November 30, 2011, regarding the corporate governance of public companies, tried to "bring order" in the management of these entities. However, the actual application of the Ordinance was and is still faced with serious difficulties, which the present statistic study aims to highlight, by analysing public enterprises in which local administrative units (LAU) hold the majority of shares.