SIGA proposes more listings on GSE

The State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) has proposed listing of more state-owned enterprises (SOEs) after successful listing of Ashanti Gold Corporation last month to raise capital from the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The proposed shortlisted candidates to be considered by the Ghana Stock Exchange are Twifo Oil Palm Plantation, the Ghana National Gas Company Ltd, and the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.

Mr. Edward Boateng, Director-General of SIGA made this known at a meeting with some executives of SOEs. He meanwhile noted that Cabinet approval is needed before the companies could be listed.

“The committee’s mandate was to identify, recommend and oversee the capital raising and listing of SIGA’s portfolio companies on the GSE. They are done with their mandate and now at the recommendation stage in order to be listed by GSE. The listing of Ashanti Gold Corporation last month was satisfying news” he said.

Mr. Edward Boateng noted that several strategies are being deployed to make state entities profitable and capable of contributing significantly to the development of the country.

“Immediately, we will continue with ensuring strict compliance with key sections of the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act, 2016 (Act 921) and PFM Regulations, 2019 (L.I. 2378) on financial reporting and accountability.”

Strict Compliance

Mr. Boateng explained that strict compliance would ensure that SIGA would have up-to-date financial information on the companies for prompt decision making.

“This way, we will bring to past the issues of entities having so many years of arrears in auditing their financials.”

Mr. Boateng stressed that under his leadership, the authority would strengthen the performance contracting systems to ensure that targets are tailored towards sustainable operations and performance of the entities.

“This we will do by signing performance contracts, monitoring and evaluating the performance and linking performance to the remuneration of management and boards. There will also be recommendations for sanctioning non-performing boards and management.”

Mr. Boateng added that SIGA’s engagements with the GSE also presented another opportunity for some specified entities to take advantage of the market to raise long-term funding.

Mr. Boateng noted that in addition to policy incoherence, there are other challenges at SIGA that needed to be addressed, including strengthening the capacity of SIGA in terms of personnel, logistics, among others, to deliver effectively on its mandate.

The Director General also stated that there are issues of lack of capitalisation of some entities and the public sector mindset of some boards, managers and staff of some entities.

It can be recalled that the SIGA set up a technical and steering committee in February last year, with representatives from the GSE, SIGA, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), to review the performance of the state entities.

Meanwhile, just last month, the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has for the first time in almost two years registered the first company- Asante Gold to be listed on the local bourse.