The State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) says it will ensure that local capacities are considered in the quest to list some Specified Entities on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

In the view of Mr Edward Boateng, Director-General of SIGA, the country’s strategic assets may fall into foreign hands if local capacities were not considered in listing some Specified Entities on the Stock Market.

“We have to be careful that we do not list some of our strategic assets whereby they may fall into foreign hands."

“So we have to make sure that we have the local capacity so that when you are listing these organisations, our local entrepreneurs and local institutions must take them up,” he told journalists at the SIGA’s annual stakeholder’s meeting at Kwahu in the Eastern Region on Thursday.

It is estimated that State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) control more 50 per cent of the country’s national assets.

The continuous posting of losses by some of the entities had elicited suggestions about the involvement of the private sector to help revamp those entities to improve their performance.

The SIGA has been working towards listing some SOEs that have the potential of making profit on the GSE to facilitate efforts for the SOEs to secure local and international partnerships with prospective investors.

The move forms part of measures towards making the SoEs financially viable, and to enable them to make profit and pay dividends to government.

Mr Boateng said some of the SOEs, including GOIL, had already been listed on the GSE, adding that discussions were ongoing to list more entities.

“Some of the SOEs are going to be listed on the SOE while in some cases some would be either privatised or divested so that government can continue to focus on its core,” he said.

Mr Boateng said the SOEs must improve their performance and be productive, adding: “they cannot continue to be a drain on government finances.”

“State entities all over the world are the enablers of the economy. They provide the economic super-highway on which the private sector, entrepreneurs can also thrive. Unfortunately, state entities have not done a good job, but that is changing now,” he said.

Addressing the participants virtually, Mrs Abena Osei-Asare, a Deputy-Minister for Finance, charged SOEs to support the government’s quest to put the economy on track by working to reverse the “trend of unprofitability.”

She said only the TDC Company Limited and the Ghana Reinsurance Company paid dividends to the government in 2022.

“We believe cost-efficiency measures are a big part of the solution. I wish to announce our resolve to enforce the expenditure measures announced by Government to keep public spending in line with our tightening economic conditions,” Mrs Osei-Asare said.

The 2023 stakeholder meeting of SIGA has brought together Board Chairs, CEOs of Specified Entities, and other relevant stakeholders to discuss strategic initiatives aimed at transforming the specified entities into high-performing organisations and ensuring they meet the President’s vision of contributing 30 per cent to Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product.

The conference, which is in accordance with Section 30 of the SIGA Act 2019 (Act 990), is on the theme: “A Time to Reflect and Rebuild”.