Accra, June 08, GNA – Mr Edward Boateng, Director-General, State Interests Governance Authority (SIGA), says the Authority is working to ensure that Specified Entities (SE) contribute at least 30 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
That, the Director-General explained, would be a huge avenue for Small and Medium Enterprises to develop and create more employment for national growth.
Sate Owned Enterprises control about 50 per cent of national assets yet they contribute less than five per cent to the country’s GDP in 2020.
In the last few months, with the inclusion of the financial accounts of forty- seven Entities into the national accounts, the figure has improved to about 21 per cent contribution to GDP.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, Mr Boateng said, this year the Authority had more than 47 Specified Entitiess submitting their financial accounts with the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), as compared to 19 Entities in the previous year.
“When this trend continues, we will have a bigger national cake where the government can borrow at lower interest rates and the ripple effects will be on the entire country,” he said.
Mr Boateng said the public sector played a key role in the transformation of the country in collaboration with the private sector.
“When we say the private sector is the engine of growth, it means the public sector must design effective policy for it to thrive. The private sector cannot be the engine of growth when the public sector is weak.”
He said the Authority had instituted interventions through stakeholder discussions to address issues concerning the filing of financial reports on time to the CAGD to help in the proper planning of government developmental agenda.
The Authority, he said would from 2023 publish the names of Chief Executive Officers, and Board Chairpersons that failed to submit their financial reports on time, adding that the motive was to ensure that they complied with both the Public Finance Management Act and the SIGA Act.
One of such initiatives, he stated, was the private engagement of Board Chairpersons of SEs with Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance on good corporate governance and productivity.
SIGA was established on June 7, 2019, under the SIGA Act 2019 (ACT 990) with the mandate to oversee and administer the performance of SOEs, JVCs, and OSEs.
Currently, there are 183 SEs in the Government’s records consisting of 51 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), 43 Joint Venture Companies (JVCs) and 89 Other State Entities (OSEs).
As of the end of December 2021, only 31 out of 51 SOEs, representing 61 per cent, 22 out of the 89 OSEs representing 25 per cent, and 22 out of 43 JVCs, representing 51 per cent, had submitted audited financial statements for the year 2020 to the Finance Ministry.
GNA