Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, the Chairman of the Board, Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), has called for more autonomy for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), based on the Chinese model, to enable them to improve in performance.
“One reality that accounts for the positive strides made by Chinese state enterprises is the level of autonomy these institutions, operating in the centralised political economy of China, a communist country, enjoy,” he said.
I’m bold to say that unless our state-owned companies and special entities are given reasonable latitudes with reduced ministerial fencing, they cannot fully deliver on their mandate.”
Mr Blay-Amihere said this at the Second Edition of the Public Enterprises League Table (PELT) Awards ceremony in Accra.
The PELT Awards Scheme, instituted by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), seeks to promote competition and excellence among the various state-owned corporations and specialised entities.
He touched on the experience acquired by chief executive officers, board chairs and members, who participated in a study tour to some state enterprises in China, organised by SIGA, and inspired by their success stories.
He said with most of them established in the early 1990s, those state enterprises had become profit making entities, offering thousands of jobs to many parts of Europe, America, Asia and Africa.
Combining advanced research, technology and digitalisation, those entities had shown that state enterprises could give success stories.
“Like the Chinese have successfully done we have to review the boundaries of relations between the Government through sector ministries and our state entities,” Mr Blay-Amihere said.
“I believe we can learn from the supervisory and regulatory roles of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), SIGA’s counterpart in China and other similar bodies”.
He urged SIGA to organise a special workshop for discussions on the findings of the China tour for Ghana’s SOEs to benefit, and commended Mr Edward Boateng, the Director-General, for the good job done.
If there was one award scheme that the nation should promote and support, it was PELT, since having the various state enterprises excel and succeed would have a positive impact on the national economy, he said.
