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SOEs urged to be accountable and
transparent
Accra, Feb. 6, GNA - Professor George Gyan-Baffour, Deputy
Minister of Finance, on Tuesday reiterated the need for
Managements of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to live by the
tenets of accountability and transparency in the discharge
of their roles.
He said while the Government held the view that autonomy was
required to ensure effective performance of SOEs, this must
go hand-in-hand with good financial management practices and
responsibilities to achieving set goals.
"The State cannot entrust billions of cedis worth of
resources into the hands of Boards and Managements without
demanding good, transparent and accountable stewardship in
return," he said at the signing of performance contract
agreements by about 30 SOEs.
Consequently, he directed Boards of SOEs to ensure that
Annual General Meetings, which constituted a most effective
means of getting Boards to account for their stewardship,
were held on or before the end of July every year.
The SOEs, including the Ghana News Agency, signed
performance contracts aimed at ensuring that the
organizations attained the targets negotiated with the State
Enterprises Commission (SEC) and the Government.
The Chief Executives of the SOEs supported by the Board of
Directors signed the contract on behalf of their respective
organizations while the Deputy Minister of Finance signed
for the Government.
Prof. Gyan-Baffour urged the Boards to make optimum use of
both human and material assets at their disposal while
cutting down on waste.
He lauded progress that had been made in the performance of
SOEs since the introduction of the performance contract
about 19 years ago. However, he said, more needed to be done
to enable the sector to contribute to Government's revenue
drive and employment.
The Deputy Minister expressed concern about the abandonment
of projects initiated by some SOEs, saying it tied up
capital which otherwise could have been used to expand and
generate employment.
According to him the problem could be overcome through sound
project management techniques and through sound procurement
procedures to allow for the completion of these projects on
time.
He suggested to the SEC to start using the number of
uncompleted projects and the completion time as a
performance measure to help to reverse the trend.
The Deputy Minister also dwelt on the importance of the
payment of dividend by SOEs, saying it was through increased
dividend payment that the Government would invest more in
the enterprises.
There was also the need for the enterprises to adopt the
payment of interim dividend as a policy.
Prof. Gyan-Baffour touched on the refocusing of some of the
SOEs in order to improve their efficiency by introducing
policies to make them increasingly self-financing.
In the process, he said, relevant SOEs would be given full
commercial mandate with full autonomy to enable them to
directly access local and international capital markets
while the mandate of the SEC would also be reviewed.
Prof. Gyan-Baffour also urged the SOEs to plan their
operations and come up with programmes and appropriate
budgets together with updated corporate plans and draft
performance by November each year to ensure that negotiation
of the contracts was concluded and signed by December 31
each year.
This, he said, would ensure that all SOEs had approved
budgets to work with at the beginning of every New Year.
Prof. Gyan-Baffour called on Boards and managements to work
as a team to ensure the attainment of targets enshrined in
the contract.
Mr Frank Ocran, Chairman of the SEC, asked Boards and
Managements to go beyond the symbolic signing of the
contracts to making sure that they met the targets
negotiated.
He said the improved performance by SOEs would help to
remove the negative perception that they were a drain on
Government resources.
Mr Ocran urged the SOEs to use the Annual Public Sector
Awards and the President Excellence Awards for Innovation to
build a new image.
He emphasized the need for a good maintenance culture of
facilities such as buildings and vehicles, saying it was one
of the surest ways to enhance the working environment in the
various organizations.
Besides, he said, prudent management of the resources
provided for cost effective running of the organizations.
Mr Ocran said the SEC would continue to make maintenance one
of the key contract performance and measurement tools.
He called on managements of the organizations to make
effective use of Information and Communication Technology to
enhance corporate planning and improve on the documentation
process.
In this direction, SEC is in discussion with the national
ICT Committee to help organizations to develop their own
draft ICT policy.
He urged managements of SOEs to cooperate with the team from
the committee who would visit their offices to provide
guidelines as to how they could fashion out an ICT policy
for their organizations.
Mr Ocran said the Commission would continue to provide
timely and quality professional and technical support to all
parties to the contract to ensure improvements in
efficiency, productivity and financial returns to government
on investment.
The SOEs included Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; Graphic
Communications Group; New Times Corporation; Electricity
Company of Ghana; Volta River Authority; Volta Lake
Transport; Irrigation Company of Upper Region; irrigation
Development Authority and Precious Minerals Marketing
Company.
GNA
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