Introduction
In my last week’s column, I gave a background to the Public Corporations Act 1988 and assessed the implications of the notification of 18 July 2000 relating to the vesting in NICIL movable and immovable property of the State. We noted that NICIL was not deemed a public corporation and therefore the provisions of the Act cannot be made applicable to it, except as provided for in the above-mentioned notification. The notification itself is not in keeping with the Act since Section 5, to which it refers, is applicable to a new corporation whereas NICIL was incorporated since 1990.
In addition, the Minister has been applying Section 8 of the Act as his authority for disposing of State assets vested in NICIL. That section, however, deals with transfers of undertakings to public corporations and not to a company such as NICIL, notwithstanding that it is a government company. There was also evidence that the vesting of State assets in NICIL, as well as their disposal,
