J.H Mensah decries collapse of SOEs

The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, J.H Mensah has expressed concern about the collapse of some state enterprises due to mismanagement.

He said this on Wednesday at the launch of the Ghana Association of Restructuring and Insolvency Advisors in Accra.

The association's objective is to encourage restructuring of distressed state owned and other business establishments.

Mr Mensah said though previous governments established those institutions to produce for domestic consumption, export and also to serve as storage facilities for some commodities for the benefit of the entire country, unfortunately heads of those institutions turned them into avenues to amass wealth for themselves to the detriment of what they were set up for.

That, he said pushed the nation backwards instead of moving it forward to ensure development.

Mr Mensah said it required total collaboration of all for the nation to move forward, adding “we all owe it a duty to move the nation forward and not to draw it backward.”

He said the country will have been at par with other successful nations if the heads of those institutions had shown some commitment and patriotism in the way they operated the enterprises.

The Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Kwadwo Baah- Wiredu recounted his personal experience of how some staff of Ghana Airways misused the airline for their personal gain.

He said as a national service person with the airline at the then Ghana House, he witnessed how some staff used the airline for business by carting goods to and from abroad without paying any fare to the state, a practice which he said had contributed to the collapse of the airline.

The president of the association, Felix Addo said the association was formed in August last year to play a leadership role in corporate restructuring, business recovery and insolvency in the country and stressed that effective and efficient insolvency laws and institutions were critical for economic growth.

Source: The Ghanaian Times