Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has said that 50% of the national assets of Ghana is being managed and controlled by State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) hence the need for a policy framework that will require real time reporting to keep track of SOE debts and other related performances.
“The role of SOEs in achieving governments economic objective of building the friendliest business economy is very pivotal, this is because SOEs, holds and manage approximately 50% of the nation’s total assets as well as having controlling influence on the other half, including the activities of the private sector.
The cardinal role of the SOEs sector is not only determined by its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but more importantly, it has a leading role in our economic growth that should propel us to our objective of “Ghana Beyond Aid.”
The senior minister made this pronouncement in a keynote address delivered on behalf of the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo at the 2018 performance contracts signing between state-owned enterprises and the government of Ghana.
The ceremony held under the theme: “Driving excellence in state owned enterprises,” was endorsed by 35-SOEs and 5-subvented, a massive increase from the previous year’s record 25 members in total.
The Executive Chairman of State Enterprises Commission(SEC), Stephen Asamoah-Boateng said, the partnership with government is to ensure improvement in public sector service delivery to the citizens of Ghana.
“The Key Performance Indicators (PKI) in this performance agreement, is to ensure that SOEs remain credit worthy, and it comes with a lot of benefits if adhered to accordingly.”
Naming but a few of the benefits SOEs stand to accrue are; ready market for SOEs, promotion for inner and outer trade, cross debt cancellation and reducing transaction challenges and barriers in doing business.
Signing for the various agencies as a sign of commitment to oblige to the KPIs are the chief executives of SOEs, chairpersons of SOE Boards(witness), Ministers and Executive Chairman of SEC.
The senior minister also announced that, government has begun the implementation of a Credit Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF), which will assist in the determination of the ability of SOEs to repay their debt obligations, hence seeking government support in the form of guarantee or on-lending facilities will be evaluated through the CRAF be the request is determined.
Touching on the issues of the legacy debt, he said, “government through the ministry of finance issued the energy bond to refinance the energy sector debts and in addition, the government has introduced a monitoring regime to prevent new debts being accumulated.
