President Akufo-Addo exchanging pleasantries with ex-President Rawlings (2nd left) and Hackman Owusu Agyemang (left).
President
Akufo-Addo has expressed disappointment in the performance of some State Owned
Enterprises (SOEs).
Even
though he did not mention names of specific institutions, he said “poor
governance, financial mismanagement and unfocused objectives have conspired to
render these enterprises ineffective in their contributions to national
development.”
The
President expressed the reservation in Accra yesterday at the opening of the national
conference on the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) agreement.
The
conference is aimed at bringing together key stakeholders in Ghana to discuss
national strategies and programme interventions to harness the benefits of the
AfCFTA.
The
President said the ineffectiveness of some of the SOEs resulted in the enactment
of a law, ACT 9090 (2019) of the State Interests and Governance Authority
(SIGA) which is going to replace “the discredited State Enterprises Commission
and the Diverstiture Implementation Committee.”
SIGA
is chaired by past President of the Employers Association (GEA), Terry Darko,
with Stephen Asamoah Boateng as Director-General.
The
President anticipated that these personalities would help infuse good private
sector practices into the management of these public enterprises.
He
charged other regulatory bodies such as the Bank of Ghana, the Registrar of
Companies, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Insurance
Commission, and the National Pension Regulatory Authority to see to the
effective regulation and supervision of the entities within their remit, saying
that “we have seen what the previous failure of regulation led to, in the
banking sector.”
“It
is essential that the regulatory bodies rise to the occasion and be up and
doing in the discharge of their duties in order to promote discipline in the
activities of the private sector,” he said.
President
Akufo-Addo said the campaign for Ghana to win the bid to host the secretariat of
the AfCFTA was a national one that involved two former Presidents, Jerry John
Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufour; the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, as well
as many other eminent statesmen.
Minister
for Trade and Industry, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, said he was looking forward to
harvesting rich ideas and proposals from the three-day conference that would
lead to the successful establishment of the AfCFTA secretariat in Ghana.
The
three-day conference is expected to have eight different
sessions that will, amongst other things, focus on putting the AfCFTA in
context, the economic benefits to be derived for Ghana from the implementation
of AfCFTA, analyze how the AfCFTA will contribute in practical terms to
realizing the objectives of the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063, the SDGs and a
Ghana Beyond Aid.
Other sessions will look at the operations of the AfCFTA in Ghana, discuss what actions are needed to develop and implement Ghana’s National Programme of Action for Boosting Intra-African Trade (BIAT), and explore ways of boosting employment opportunities for the youth, as well as enhancing the empowerment of women.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent
