The government is about to undertake a debt exchange programme to put the country’s debt on a good path and to enable it restore the economy back to sound public finance and sustainable debt levels.
According to Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, the transaction is an essential element of the economic reform programme which the government is undertaking, and for which it is seeking support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other development partners.
The programme has become eminent due to the surge in inflation, large exchange rate depreciation and increased stress on the financing of the 2023 Budget. Until a week ago, fuel, food and transport prices were skyrocketing.
Despite the assurances that the exchange programme would take the country out of the doldrums, many financial institutions and pension unions have declared their rejection of the debt exchange programme.
According to some of the labor unions, after a careful analysis of the programme, they had come to the conclusion that the programme would negatively affect their pension funds and jeopardise their retirement security. They have, therefore, asked the government to exempt them from the debt restructure programme.
Many Ghanaians have called on the government to show leadership and commitment to bringing the country back on its feet, by reducing its size.
The Director-General of State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA), an organisation that oversees all state enterprises, Amb. Edward Boateng, is of the view that the country would not be witnessing all these if some heads of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) had been managing the entities placed under their care well.
According to Ambassador Edward Boateng, some of these billion-dollar SOEs are being managed like little corner shops by the various heads.
Mr. Boateng said his lamentation stemmed from the fact that these entities were established with government monies and were being managed with government money, adding that they alone control 50 percent of government resources.
Amb. Boateng believes that if they were to be paying dividends to the government, they would have helped offset some state debts, and the country wouldn’t have been in the state it was in now.
Amb. Boateng, therefore, noted that while it was taking steps to streamline the operations of these institutions to ensure that they achieve organisational excellence, operational efficiency and financial stability, it would also not hesitate to advise the government to close down any institution that is not pulling its weight.
The Chronicle supports the views expressed by Amb. Boateng. Looking at the number of people who are employed in these institutions, the government has a lot to pay at the end of every month. Aside salaries, the government pays water, electricity and other expenditures.
If these institutions were to be financially sustainable, they could have offset some of these bills and eased the burden on government.
We, therefore, buy into the idea of closing down institutions who are underperforming. We believe there is no need to keep spending on an institution that is not contributing anything significant to the country’s growth.
We are through this editorial calling on the government to resource SIGA to manage these SOEs well, to bring about the positive changes it desires to make.
