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The Minister of Public Enterprise, Mr Joseph Cudjoe has urged the media to focus on state entities that do not sign performance contracts in a bid to promote accountability and transparency.
He explained that it was important that the media in particular showed interest in the operations of these entities if they were to deliver value for the country and its socio-economic development agenda.
“It is you and I, our taxes as far as the President is concerned… your taxes should be managed well. Your taxes get invested in State Enterprises and those investment must not go waste,” he stressed.
Mr Cudjoe made the call when he took his turn at the minister’s press briefing organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra on Thursday.
He said many more State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) were signing performance contracts as part of the government’s effort to improve efficiency and accountability of their operations.
He said a comparison of the situation with what existed prior to the coming into power of the current administration showed a remarkable improvement.
For instance, he said in 2016 only six SOEs signed a performance contracts compared to 25 in 2017, 41 in 2018, 47 in both 2019 and 2020, 64 in both 2021 and 2022 and 73 in 2023.
Mr Cudjoe said the high number of SOEs signing the performance contracts under the current government was due to the establishment of Public Enterprises Secretariat and the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) which had been mandated with oversight responsibilities.
“Sustaining the Improved Corporate Governance Structures to Deliver Performance of Specified Entities” was the topic for the briefing, which provided detailed activities of the ministry and the SIGA’s oversight responsibilities over the 175 Specified Entities (SEs) in the past three and half years.
He said a State Ownership Report (SOR) of all the 175 Specified Entities would be published to enable the public to assess and understand how the SEs had performed in terms of compliance, transparency and accountability of their operations by the end of August.
The minister said his outfit over the period had rolled out a State Ownership Policy to guide boards, managements and staff of the Specified Entities on ways to manage funds received from the central government.
In addition, he said the Code of Corporate Governance for public service organisations to guide their operations had been implemented over the same period, emphasising that “since independence, this is the best time the public enterprises are really doing well in terms of accountability, transparency and profitability.”
“In 2016, only two Stated-Owned Enterprises provided their audited accounts, but as I speak now 52 SOEs have appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament with their audited accounts while 55 of the SOEs have already prepared their audited accounts,” he said.
The Director-General of SIGA, Mr John Boadu, in an interview with journalists after the briefing, stated that hitherto there wasn’t much transparency and accountability among SOEs due to the absence of an institution or body with an oversight responsibility over them.
“In 2016, only two SOEs presented their audited accounts report out of 175, and so, if there is no SIGA to enforce compliance, I believe most SOEs wouldn’t present the reports. However, at the moment, 55 SOEs have presented their audited accounts and by the close of the year, 130 would have presented their audited accounts.
Mr Boadu said in 2020, the SOEs contributed about GH¢20 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and increased it to GH¢419 billion in 2022.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
