By: Rebecca Ekpe
For three years now, the State Interests and Governance Authority, SIGA, has been working to ensure efficiency and profitability within state-owned enterprises while promoting good corporate governance as mandated by an Act of Parliament, Act 990. How has SIGA performed over the years and how has it harnessed the energies of specified Entities?
Director-General of SIGA, Edward Boateng spoke in an exclusive interview with Rebecca Ekpe in Accra, where he scored SIGA 9 out of 10 by way of its performance.
He however said it is the responsibility of governments the world over to provide jobs, and also to use SOEs to create what he termed the economic superhighway for private businesses to thrive.
“Now we are the SOEs, at the inception of the country’s post-independence, we must accept that we didn’t have the capacity in terms of entrepreneurship and the capacity of individuals to invest. All over the world, it is the responsibility of the government to set up these industries. After 65 years, we are now looking at governments exiting some of these industries because some of these industries are better handled by the private sector’’, he explained.
The SIGA Boss stressed that, “it is however the responsibility of governments all over the world to provide jobs and also to use these SOEs to create what I term the economic superhighway so that private business can thrive……, you go to some countries and you realize that the private sector thrives at the back of the public sector so the provision of amenities and the media, the public sector provided the initial foundation. A clear example is DSTV of South Africa which started in the studios of SABC, but today it is bigger than SABC’’, he posited.
According to Mr. Boateng, the notion that the government should exit from some State entities is not entirely right and that SOEs should be profit-making is also not entirely right. Rather, there should be a critical look at the opportunities therein and then create them for individual entrepreneurs to ride on the back of the government.
“And, this is what SIGA is seeking to achieve’’, he stated.
The SIGA Boss said SOEs are not only looking at the profit-making motive because “the public sector should not compete with the private sector in terms of profitability, otherwise we will not be able to grow industries in the country’’, Mr. Boateng noted.
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