Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta
State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) revenue has been trending upwards, increasing from GH¢13.66bn in 2015 to GH¢28.56bn in 2019, the latest State Ownership Report published by the Ministry of Finance has revealed.
The data means that over the five-year period, the revenue of SOEs increased by an average of 21.4 percent per annum.
In 2019, the latest year covered by the report, revenue grew by 18.6 percent from GH¢24.08bn in 2018.
The growth in 2019 reflected improvements in the revenue performance of SOEs in all but one (governance) sector, the report said.
The energy sector, which accounts for 67.4 percent of SOEs’ revenue, increased its revenue from GH¢16.35bn in 2018 to GH¢19.24bn in 2019. This represented an increase of 17.7 percent.
In absolute terms, ECG and VRA made the most significant contribution to the increased revenue performance of the energy sector. They posted increases of GH¢1.29bn (21 percent) and GH¢467.31m (12.7 percent) in revenue from GH¢6.14bn and GH¢3.68bn respectively in 2018 to GH¢7.43bn and GH¢4.15bn in 2019.
The report said the agriculture, financial, and infrastructure sectors, which recorded 38.6 percent (GH¢193.46m), 33.9 percent (GH¢778.76m), and 15.8 percent (GH¢410.97m) increases respectively, made notable contributions to the revenue performance.
The top five SOEs which drove revenue performance in 2019 were ECG with GH¢7.43bn, VRA with GH¢4.15bn, GNPC with GH¢3.48bn, GHA with GH¢1.75bn, and GPHA with GH¢1.36bn.
These five SOEs cumulatively accounted for 63.6 percent of the aggregate revenue of SOES in 2019
The preparation and publication of the State Ownership Report was initiated in 2017 as part of the government’s strategy to reform and improve the governance and financial performance of SOEs.
The initiative was intended to shed light on the performance of SOEs and improve transparency and accountability in the SOE sector, the potential of which the country is yet to fully leverage to support the national development process.