With great urgency backed by verifiable data, facts and figures dismiss COCOBOD, ECG, GNPC, GACL CEOs — Group

An advocacy group calling itself United Voices for Change is calling for the dismissal of the Chief Executive Officers of major state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

They want the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Ghana Water Company Limited, and Ghana Airport Company Limited dismissed, citing mismanagement of resources as they continue to incur losses.

The group also accused the agencies of private involvement in the management of affairs, stating that it is a deliberate attempt by politicians to push the CEOs of these institutions to run the enterprises into a ditch and later engage in corrupt practices of selling off the devalued state-owned enterprises to themselves.

Speaking to Citi News, the convener of the group, who is a lecturer and Head of the Department for Banking and Finance at Kumasi Technical University, Professor Abdul Aziz Iddrisu, expressed deep concern over the alarming figures illustrating the declining financial well-being of state-owned enterprises and their impact on the nation’s development and economic stability.

The convener stated that “our state-owned enterprises are underperforming; this has drained the country's resources and plunged the country into underdevelopment and indebtedness. Undisputedly, SOEs are profit-oriented entities and should be making profits.

“Sadly enough, it appears the managers of these enterprises, in key positions, are more loyal to their appointing authorities than to the development of the companies, leading them to deliberately run SOEs at a loss.”

“It is with great urgency backed by verifiable data, facts and figures that we call for the dismissal of the CEOs of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), and Ghana Water Company Limited, and Ghana Airport Company. These individuals have presided over a period of financial decline and recklessness and have failed to fulfil their mandates of ensuring profitability and revenue generation for the state.

“We also want the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, and the Attorney General to ensure that the CEOs of these entities, after being dismissed, face the law.”