Ghanaian companies have been competing to get their names etched on the Ghana Club 100 list annually but none appears to have made any headway in raising the flag of Ghana high at the continental level.

A recent survey by The Africa Report – a monthly magazine which has its head office in Paris, France, shows a list of some 200 African companies selected from the first batch of 500 companies which has so far been published. The companies are ranked based on their turnover and net profits and also how well they performed in 2010, as against the previous year (2009).

This information is provided by the companies with a clearly defined source, the magazine disclosed and where a company provides financial data in local currency and it is converted into US dollar according to the rate prevailing on December 31, 2009.

Of the lot, MTN Ghana placed 147th with a turnover of $764,025,000. It never provided any data on its net profits, but in 2009 it placed 179 on the list, moving up by 32 points.

From the 35th position in 2009, MTN Nigeria moved up 11 points to place 24th in the 2010 rankings. It posted a turnover of $4,493,011,000. However, Oando from Nigeria, which offers petroleum services, dropped 11 points from the 47th position in 2009 to 58th position in 2010.

It also posted a turnover of $2,209,799,000 with a net profit of $66,236,000. Most South African companies are on the list. And the top five include Sonatrach from Algeria with a turnover of $47,479,918,000; Sonangol from Angola with a turnover of $22,442,400,000, followed by Sasol, The Bidvest Group and MTN Group respectively from South Africa.

‘Of 6,691 African companies on our database, 5,913 received a detailed questionnaire. After cross-checks and verification, we established ranking of top 1,550 companies,’ the magazine reports.

It indicated that all companies fell under legal jurisdiction of at least one of the 53 countries in Africa with the exception of Zimbabwe.

‘This is why a holding company and a subsidiary can both feature on the list. ‘Companies which are unable to provide information on their performance after two years are struck off the rankings.’