Government to sell assets of 17 defunct SOEs – Minister

The Minister for Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe, has announced the Government’s intention to dispose of assets of 17 inactive State-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs) to save costs.

The Cabinet, he said, had already approved the processes for evaluation of the assets of the affected SOEs and within the next few months activities for disposal would begin.

Some of the SOEs whose assets would go on sale included the Aboso Glass Factory’s Central Stores, the bungalow of the Bolgatanga Meat Factory, Bonsa Tyre Factory’s Clinic, the research laboratory of the Ghana Consolidated Diamonds, the regional office of the Ghana Food Production Corporation at Srodae and the guesthouse of the State Construction Company at the Dagomba Street in the Northern Region.

Mr Cudjoe announced this at the Minister’s News briefing organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra on Wednesday.

The media encounter offered an opportunity for the Minister to update the public on the various policies and interventions undertaken by his Ministry.

Mr Cudjoe said since his assumption of office in 2021, he had visited and interacted with 44 Boards and Managements of some Specified Entities and helped them to resolve some pertinent issues affecting their operations.

The Ministry, through the Public Enterprise Secretariat, he said, had organised capacity-building workshops for some Board and Management members of the SOEs to sharpen their skills on corporate governance, financial stewardship, legal and regulatory framework and public procurements.

A study undertaken by the Government and completed in 2019 estimated that the market value of the State’s equity holding in 63 active Specified Entities amounted to GHS 35.7 billion as at December 2016, the Minister stated.

Of the amount, SOEs accounted for 92 percent of the value and the remaining eight percent represented the State’s equity in Joint Venture Companies (JVCs), he added.

The Minister disclosed government’s intentions to restructure some SOEs through listing them on the Ghana Stock Exchange, liquidation, strategic investment and outright disposal.

As part of efforts to ensure effective and efficient management of the SOEs, the Minister said, in 2021 it introduced a Public Enterprises League Table (PELT) as a tool for assessing the performances of the Specified Entities and to engender healthy competition amongst them for improved performance.

The maiden edition of PELT was published in 2022 and generated a lot of public interest and thus, energized some of the SOEs to improve their standing on the table in subsequent edition.