Annual Reports and Financial Disclosure to Parliament

Abstract

Questions, debates and motions are the continuous mechanisms through which governments are to be made accountable for their conduct and that of their agencies during sessions of Parliament. Annual reports are periodic mechanisms. The Morrisonian model of public enterprises puts considerable faith in continuous and periodic mechanisms which can provide information to Parliament on the activities of enterprises. Corporations are expected to prepare annual reports describing their activities and showing the extent to which they have attained their statutory objectives, and to table these through the ministries. Private companies also produce annual reports, which they present to both the Registrar of Companies (Cap 212: 109–112) and to their annual meetings. Cooperatives do the same; their annual reports to the Registrar of Cooperatives provide detailed accounts of their activities and transactions (Cooperative Societies Act 1982: 67–71).