The Director-General of the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), Ambassador Edward Boateng has called on heads of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to be aggressive in posting profits to justify the huge investments made in their sectors by government.
Most specified entities do not post profits and according to Ambassador Boateng, this narrative can change if the right strategies and monitoring are instituted to turn things around. Only a few of the 175 specified entities under SIGA, according to reports, have posted profits over the years.
This, Ambassador Edward Boateng believes can be corrected with the proper corporate governance, strong operational efficiency and adequate monitoring regimes. “Through good corporate governance, operational efficiency and monitoring, we should be able to use specified entities as economic super-highways, so that when a private entrepreneur wants to do something, the path would have already been created by SOEs”, Ambassador Boateng intimated during his presentation.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Edward Boateng, also expressed concern over the penchant to target individuals and drag them in the mud over Ghana’s current economic state rather than taking a holistic approach to the challenges we face. He suggest one of the reasons the Finance Minister is being criticized could be attributed to low profits and in some cases losses incurred by SOEs. He explained that, because a lot of the SOEs in Ghana have not made significant profits, it limits the funds available for projects and can be considered as a factor to our economic crises.
According to him, the trend must change and it is the duty of SIGA to do that. SIGA is mandated by law to promote the efficient or where applicable profitable operations of specified entities. The signing of performance contracts, training of Board Chairs and CEOs, effective periodic monitoring and holding heads of institutions responsible for the outcome and performance of their units have been some of the initiatives used so far by his team at SIGA to change the narrative. He added that so far, SIGA has in the short to medium term worked to improve the performance of SOEs emphasizing that 24 out of the 47 SOEs covered in the State Ownership Report (SOR) published in 2020 recorded significant improvement year on year.
This represents 51 percent of all SOEs in the country. Additionally, Ambassador Boateng said SIGA has commenced the 2023 Performance Contract Processes with Specified Entities (SEs) which is geared towards ensuring that Specified Entities operate efficiently and profitably in the upcoming year. He said SIGA in rolling out the Performance Contract Processes will prioritize projects and initiatives that will increase productivity and efficiency, generate employment opportunities for the youth, create wealth and yield dividends for the state.
The engagement with Specified Entities is an initiative of SIGA in collaboration with the Ministry of Information to update Ghanaians and the media on the progress of specified entities. Heads of SEOs, Joint Ventures and other Specified Entities are expected to take their turns in updating Ghanaians and the media on the mandate given to them by the president at their various institutions and also receive feedback from the public; a critical stakeholder in the development of state agencies.
