As part of measures aimed at ensuring the efficiency of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the country, a system which will show their individual performances will soon be put in place for public consumption.
This was announced by the Public Enterprises Minister, Joseph Cudjoe.
The value of Ghana’s 126 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is GH¢110 billion, representing approximately 27% of the nation’s 2020 Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
State Owned Enterprises in the country have however not been able to live up to expectations as many of them have not been able to pay dividends to the state.
For instance, as of the end of 2019, an aggregate net loss of GH₵586.4 million was recorded in the SOEs sector, and this compares to a loss position of GH₵188 million in 2018.
Indeed, between 2015 and 2019, SOEs have consistently posted negative operating margins, averaging around 10%.
Addressing the issue, Joseph Cudjoe said measures are being put in place to ensure the efficiency of the enterprises.
“We will take the initiative and rank State Owned Enterprises when it comes to their importance and see who made it first, second and so on, including the ones that performed the worst and are last. We will also rank CEOs and boards and so what will happen is that we are going to generate public interest in State Owned Enterprises because we believe that the president’s vision is that the State Owned Enterprises must be performing.”
Meanwhile, the Private Enterprises Federation (PEF) is optimistic that the move will greatly enhance the fortunes of the private sector as government agencies remain the biggest procurer of goods and services needed for the growth of the economy of which the private sector is heavily involved in.
“So far as the government is recognizing that there must be an improvement in the state of these institutions, this initiative is in the right direction because they want to improve state enterprises activities and that is a push to private sector because private sector dependence on state institutions is enormous. The government is the biggest procurer of goods and services so government state institutions play a key role in how private sector benefits from state activities and the private enterprise federation and its partners have been working with a lot of state institutions to improve how their service strata, improve how they go about delivering their services to private sector, improve how they fight corruption and others, so this move by the state is in the right direction recognizing that efficiency is the way to go to improve the economy in general”.
