The Minister of State in-charge of Public-Private Partnership, Mr Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, has tasked the newly constituted board of directors of the State Enterprises Commission (SEC) to effectively deal with corruption and fraudulent activities that are stifling the growth of state-owned organisations.
Speaking at the inauguration of the new board, the minister said it was unfortunate that most state-owned enterprises (SOEs) continued to perform poorly despite the numerous resources at their disposal.
Mr Pelpuo, therefore, tasked the board to focus more on ensuring that state-owned organisations functioned efficiently.
“You were carefully selected because the President believe in your capacity to bring efficient development to the SEC. You must therefore put in much work to make him proud,” he said.
Board
The eight-member board of directors the of SEC comprises seven males and a female.
The executive chairman of SEC, Dr Camynto Baezie, is the chair of the board.
The members include Mr Joseph Chognuru, the Director of Public Investment Division at the Ministry of Finance, Dr Kwame Achampong-Kyei, the executive chairman of GLICO Group Limited, and Prof Kwame Dontwi, the Director of the Institute of Distance Learning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The rest are Mr Ebenezer Adjirackor, the Director of Policy at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mrs Leticia Osafo-Addo, the Chief Executive of Samba Foods and Mr Nico Van Staalduinen, the Executive Director of European Business Organisation Ghana (EBO-Ghana). The board has been given a four-year mandate. The SEC has been without a board of directors for more than two decades.
Confidence
Mr Pelpuo said one of the major ways of restoring confidence of Ghanaians to state-owned organisations was for the board members to make government enterprises attractive.
“You must do this by eliminating any negative image that people hold about the state-owned organisations. This can be done through efficient implementation and delivery of good initiatives,” he said.
Mr Pelpuo further observed that an efficient SOE would be able to achieve its annual performance bond and that failure to achieve such targets must attract sanctions.
Resources
A member of the Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprise Sub-committee in Parliament, Mr Kwasi Agyemang Gyan-Tutu, bemoaned the lack of resources for most state-owned organisations.
Mr Gyan-Tutu, therefore, called on the board members to give their best to enhance the image of those organisations.
The chairman of the board of directors, Mr Baezie, gave an assurance that the board would work in accordance with the guidelines given them by the government.
Sign up here to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.