ABSTRACT
The emergence of public enterprise in developing countries has coincided with initial stages of industrialisation and modern economic development. It has even seemed to be a necessary condition for the latter; and governments have felt that they had ‘little choice in this respect’. First, the development status of several countries was so low that the first efforts towards development involved them in heavy costs which were analogous to overheads of national economic development. A significant proportion of these devolved on public enterprises which happened to be the vehicle of the development strategy. The second aspect of the development perspective is that the costs of national gestation, though applicable to private enterprises as well, are disproportionately associated with public enterprises. A third historical fact, which intensified the burdens of national costs of development borne by public enterprises, is that the latter, representing the beginnings of national development efforts, came into being in the early years of national independence in many cases.
