1A. Explain why nations are restructuring their basic infrastructures. Concentrate on electricity, or contrast differences and similarities with electricity, natural gas and telecommunications.
Nations appear to restructure energy-related (and other) infrastructures to improve operational efficiency of public utilities, and to improve the economic health of a given nation itself. By and large, restructuring means privatizing at least some part of the delivery of public utilities. Inefficiencies and waste that are typical of civil service management systems prevent or delay implementation of innovation. The fact that public utilities are single-origin resources in common use by a nation's population means that competition is limited. Civil service organizations, entrenched in monopolistic authority or management control, have little motive to transform methods of operation or systems of organization because the prospective benefit for doing so is limited. Further, civil service employment and administration also tends to involve the creation of secure jobs for more and more workers on the line far more than opportunity for their professional development; government-owned utilities "are nearly always accused of having excess employees per unit sold" (Cicchetti and Sepetys 100). Meanwhile, government administration of a public utility tends to drain rather than produce financial resources. Capital formation for construction could be drawn from national treasuries, whether the government entity finances and manages construction directly or offers private-sector investors and contractors a return on investment.
In particular, government financing of a utility with foreign capital increases foreign debt (Cicchetti and Sepetys 99). This problem can be compounded by national policies that make debt service costs excessively high. For example, Cicchetti and Sepetys note that the commercial banks in Pakistan have high reserve requirements ...