Delays in audited financial statements: Submit 2023 reports to SIGA by May 15 …President bares teeth at SOEs

President Akufo-Addo

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has directed all State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) to submit their audited financial statements for 2023 to the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) by May 15 this year or face sanctions.

He said the Public Financial Management Act mandated the submission of audited financial statements of specified entities by the end of April each year and this must not be taken lightly at all.

President Akufo-Addo (third from left), presenting the SIGA policy documents to Mr.John Boadu (second from right), acting Director-General, SIGA after the launch

“These financial statements are central to the preparation of the State Ownership Report (SOR) and board chairs of all specified entities and all the cabinet approved list of entities are expected to submit their audited accounts and financial statements to SIGA by May 15, 2024,” he emphasised.

President Akufo-Addo issued the directive at the opening of the 2024 annual Policy and Governance Forum organised by the Ministries of Public Enterprises and the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with SIGA and the Public Service Commission.

The Policy and Governance Forum is an annual event initiated in 2018 as part of measures taken to translate into reality the government’s vision to transform and leverage the potential of Public Enterprises to contribute meaningfully to national development.

This year’s forum was on the theme: “Maximising benefits from State Interests through effective Corporate Governance” and was attended by heads of all SOEs, members of the Diplomatic Corps and development partners.

The occasion was also used to launch, two policy documents dubbed; “the State Ownership Policy and the Code of Corporate Governance” which aims at shaping the governance of Ghana’s Public Enterprises.

President Akufo-Addo explained that his government had taken measures to enhance transparency and accountability in the governance and management of public enterprises in the country to ensure that they deliver on their mandate and contribute to the national economy.

He said as part of the measures, SIGA was mandated to prepare the SOR which served amongst others as accountability and transparency document annually.

This report, he said offered the government and the public access to information on the financial and non-financial performances of public enterprises.

“With funding from the World Bank to finance the public management for service delivery programme, the public enterprises secretariat in collaboration with SIGA and the Public Investments and Assets Division of the Ministry of Finance, are working to ensure timely report reporting of public enterprises performance,”

He noted that the preparation and publication of SOR had always suffered delay due to a litany of constraints key among which was the non-compliance of public entities to submit their financial statements to SIGA.

“The 2020 SOR was published in March 2022, the 2021 SOR was published in January 2024 this year. The 2022 SOR is now at the final stages of completion. We should not tolerate these delays any further,” he warned.

President Akufo-Addo also directed the Director General of SIGA to furnish him with the list of all specified entities who had not complied with his directive by May 31, 2024, stressing that “As a follow up to this directive, I expect the Director General of SIGA to furnish me with the list of all specified entities who have not complied with this directive by May 31, 2024.”

On his part, the Minister in-charge of Public Enterprises, Mr Joseph Ato Cudjoe, said the theme of the two documents addressed two drivers of performance which were effective management and corporate governance issues.

BY CLIFF EKUFUL