Management Problems of Public Enterprises and Time Management

In any developing economy, the Government is the main initiator and promoter of economic development,especially in Nigeria. In developing countries, Governments usually intervene some areas of economy in which the private sector cannot perform, according to Abubalar(1986) in order to facilitate the Federal Government has instituted and made use of many public enterprises over the years.

The Management of Time is an issue which is fundamental to job performance. In the past, attention to the relationship between time and job performance was restricted to manual workers and then, by means of organization and methods to clerical workers.

The consideration of Time utilization for Managerial and professional grades has not received much attention until recently current approaches are based on the assumption that personal effectiveness at work is primarily function of the individual management of his or her time.



For productivity to be high, the judicious time usage is very important, without the proper usage of time,there will be lower productivity within an organization especially Public Enterprises. As a Manager in an organization, one must be very conscious on the use of time which will affect the entire organization's output which is very common in Public Enterprises nowadays.

If a manager makes use of his time effectively and efficiently, the organization, will be in a path to growth and development. The subordinates will also be motivated to put in their best for the organization. Therefore, in a Public Enterprises, if there is no time target on a particular task,productivity will be low,which is going to adversely affect the organization negatively.

One of the major objectives of any Government is a stable growth and development of the country through Industrialization.

One of the avenues through which it is achieved is by the Establishment of Public Enterprises. ANAMMCO, being a Public Enterprise, the researcher has undertaken to investigate how much it has contributed to the general growth and development and also investigate their managerial problems.The Public Enterprises is not free from demerits and defects. They are facing various problems and shortcomings.Not only is there lack of proper time management but also other problems like:

1.Delayed Decisions- Delay in decision making is the one of the key problems. Lack of personal interest,no one willing to take responsibility for making decisions.The loss in public enterprises have been undergoing losses and the number of losses is the mounting year after year.

2.Lack Of Innovations-Innovations are essential for economic development. Public enterprises lack it due to monopoly or lack of competition.The private sector is always busy with the innovating new techniques,new production methods etc for the purpose of cost reduction and profit maximization.On the other,public sector employees and their jobs are secure. They do not bother about the cost and profit of public enterprises.

3.Excessive Government Control-It has been found that the Government is always interfering in the petty decisions of the Public Enterprises. Decisions making takes a long time due to the complex procedure in the public enterprises. Autonomous corporations were set up to avoid excessive government control in the public enterprises. It is therefore,suggested that the government control should not be diffused and dispersed over a wide area,but there should be confined to basic issues and key points.

4.Political Interference-Public Enterprises are becoming a means of fulfilling the political objective of political parties. They have to serve the political interests of the ruling parties.

It has been observed that the political factors influence decisions about the location of the projects,appointments and even day operations.

Locations of the project is decided on the basis of Political interest and not on the basis of the economic visibility of the project,resulting in incurring losses. This approach leads to considerable wastage of capital resources. Political are nominated on the board of Directors of Public Enterprises.

5.Under Utilization of Capacity-Public Enterprises is facing the problems of under utilization of their installed capacity.Thus, the capital resources are not fully utilized by Public Enterprise.

Therefore, it is necessary to find the causes of low capacity utilization and thus remedy the situation with appropriate measures. Shortages of power,inadequate raw materials,managerial inefficiency etc.

6.Time and Cost Over-Runs-Most of the Public sector projects take the long ester time to complete than was initially envisaged. The cost of the projects also run upwards due to the delay in the completion of projects.

Poor and adequate project planning is the main cause of their delay in the construction time schedule and increase in the cost.Therefore, it is essential to prepare the completion of other project and an increase in cost can be avoided.

The major objective of this research is to examine the effect of time management on the production of goods and services,as well as, to determine the lessons,learnt from the results data collected through this research.

However, in specification, the study is to address the following issues:

1. To find out the time-consciousness of the staff in relation to their productivity.
2. To asses the effects of time management on the productivity in an organisation.

Despite the importance of time in the provision of goods and services in an organization,not much attention seems to have been paid to it.