COPE: A bridge between despair and hope

Thursday, 3 November 2016

The Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE), a body of parliamentary oversight into the performance and fiscal discipline of corporations that are fully state-owned or in which the Government has a financial stake, has conducted its sittings in-camera since its establishment in 1979. In other words, traditionally and by law its hearings and deliberations must occur behind closed doors. Its members, comprising parliamentarians from parties represented in the legislature, and especially the Chairman of the Committee are expected to protect that confidence. COPE has quasi-judicial powers and is empowered to summon officials and documentation, hear testimony and obtain expert opinion to aid their inquiries. Once the Committee concludes deliberations and officially presents its findings to Parliament, the recommendations contained in its reports are considered directives to the public sector enterprise concerned, for compliance.

Over the past two weeks, the COPE has dominated the news cycle, as the committee set about its most controversial business since it was reconstituted following the August 2015 parliamentary election. Remarkably, representing a major break with tradition, very little about its latest proceedings and deliberations on the Central Bank Treasury bond scandal could be considered ‘in-camera’.

COPE A bridge between despair and hope.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd