An Associate Professor in Finance at the Kumasi Technical University, Prof. Iddrisu Abdul Aziz has revealed that the losses recorded by 4 State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) were 5 times more than the total grants Ghana received in the same year.
He added that the SOEs, which included GNPC, Cocobod and Ghana Airport Company recorded total losses of 3.2 billion cedis adding that COCOBOD contributed 98% of losses in 2020 and all the losses in 2019 and 2018.
Prof. Abdul Aziz was speaking at the Maiden lecture by the United Voices for Change held on Wednesday (December 6, 2023) in Accra.
It was under the theme “Governance Performance of State Owned Enterprise in Ghana”.
“With the coming into force of the law governing SOEs, SOEs were expected to be cutting their losses and making profits
Look at cocobod they are running losses and the people are being paid bonuses. Their existence is rather a drain to the state resources instead of profit”, Prof. Aziz decried.
He said almost all the SOEs are running at a loss, a situation he described as disheartening.
He explained that the abysmal performance of the SOEs is as a result of bad management.
“ SOEs are supposed to be commercially oriented and not record losses”, the Associate Professor lamented.
On his part, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Edward Gyampo called for an urgent need to employ competent people with technical know-how to manage State Own Enterprises (SOEs), instead of appointing footsoldiers without any proper qualification to handle such state enterprises in the country.
Prof. Gyampo revealed that, such state enterprises are always giving out as a way of rewarding party supporters who in one way or the other, have contributed immensely to the party’s agenda or, people who insult most.
“This unacceptable considerations form basis for selection”.
Prof. Gyampo therefore questioned the appointments and the composition of the Boards which essentially, he said is subject to excessive partisan politics leading to appointments and placement of square pegs in round holes.
A former Chairman of the PNC Bernard Mornah described what is happening within the SEOs as thievery urging “the youth to speak up against this thievery”.
Source :newsflashafrica.com
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