Accra, June 7, GNA – Mr Joseph Cudjoe, the Minister of Public Enterprises, on Monday paid a working visit to the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) and urged it to help in safeguarding investments in state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

He said a lot of state resources had been invested in Specified Entities which includes the SOEs, JVCs, and regulatory firms, but those investments had not yielded the expected results in terms of performance, output and outlet.

SIGA is tasked to promote, within the framework of government policy, the efficient and profitable operations of statutory corporations engaged in trade.

Mr Cudjoe expressed regret at the loss of investment in the Black Star Line, which owned 25 ships at the Tema Harbour some time ago, the Ghana Airways and other state investments in telecommunication, among others, which were mismanaged leading to their collapse.

“All I’m saying is when we look at every sector where the state had poured investment in, if the outcomes have been what we expected as we made the investment, today, Ghana would be doing very well,” he said.

“But that is a problem the President wants to solve. We want to look at one hundred and seventy-five (175) Specified Entities, comprising fifty-two (52) State-owned Enterprises, forty-six (46) Joint Venture Companies and seventy-seven (77) other State Entities, as portfolio of investment, and make sure that those that must be partnered with strategic investors are done, and those to be divested through the Ghana Stock Exchange are also taken care of.”

As part of the tool for solving those problems, he said government had created SIGA to be responsible for its shares and administer those shares to generate maximum benefits for the Ghanaian citizens.

He said President Akufo-Addo’s vision of the “One District, One Factory” programme, which had provided seventy-six (76) private sector-led companies, with more in the offing, was to create wealth for the country “by way of making sure that those that must be partnered with strategic investors are done.”

Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, the Director General of SIGA, agreed with the Minister that more had to be done by the Authority, whose mandate was to ensure good corporate governance and help manage SOEs more profitably.

Source: Ghana News Agency