Joseph Cudjoe
The Minister for Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe, says there has been a dramatic change in the way the country’s economy is managed since 2017, with state-owned enterprises now making a turnaround and posting profits.
According to him, up to the period ending 2016, state-owned enterprises were poorly run, adding that these were days the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was in power.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE after an interaction with management of the Volta River Authority (VRA) during a working visit yesterday, the minister said the VRA had moved from a loss-making institution to a profitable institution after recording a debt of GH¢1,320 million in 2016.
“The visit here has highlighted one amazing story for me. Generally speaking, up to the period ending 2016, State Enterprises were poorly run for the eight years that NDC was in power. You could see from the records; you could see from the financials. Some were not able to report on their audited financial statements for eight years,” Mr. Cudjoe indicated.
He, however, noted that “the VRA’s story today, there has been a turnaround. VRA from 2011 to 2016 was going into deep losses. Up to a point in time, the loss reported for the year was about GH¢1.3 billion.”
“That is deep; very steep in that sense, but since 2017 when President Akufo-Addo took the reins of power, the leadership he has provided for VRA through his appointment of board and management team, we see the result of a turnaround and it is expected that the year 2020 the audited financial statement when done will report a marginal profit, meaning the turnaround period is complete,” he noted.
He described the current trend as reassuring that state-owned enterprises are now operating profitably as envisioned by President Akufo-Addo, and that will give the government some respite.
“The President’s mandate is to deliver public goods and services so far as the citizenry are concerned, so if state enterprises are competing for funding then how does the government provide the funding for infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, and roads that are in need so much,” Mr. Cudjoe stated.
He commended the management of VRA for the success story and asked them to continue on their vision.
VRA Turnaround
Chief Executive of VRA, Ing. Emmanuel Antwi-Darkwa, explained how the turnaround was done, saying “We looked at our own operations and asked ourselves how come we were in the difficulties. Once we identified the difficulties that we needed to improve on our finances, operations and business processes, and the need to maintain our market share. Once we had seen the ingredients for success, we decided that we would embark on a programme to do all that.”
He said VRA embarked on “a financial recovery plan” by setting a target from 2018 to 2020 to move VRA from a loss-making institution to a profitable one.
“And that is what we were able to achieve. We were able to identify what we should do at the operational level – how we should run our power plants either on gas or liquid fuel, how we should motivate our staff to become more productive,” Mr. Antwi-Darkwa noted.
According to him, the VRA’s turnaround is also anchored on digitalisation of its business, stating that “so today as we speak, when I walk into my office the place is paperless. The paperwork is now done digitally.”
“I don’t have a pile of paper on my desk like other places. We also have a paperless environment at VRA. Something that you did in an hour can be done in 10 minutes today,” he stressed, and added that “that is how far productivity has been taken to. It helps us to accelerate our business very, very effectively.”
He said VRA needed to sustain the gains, and continued, “That is why we have put together a sustainability plan. COVID-19 has taught us a lesson.”
“You can be a straight-forward utility and just be generating electricity. You’ve got to leverage IT. We have an extensive ICT system and embraced digitalization, and it will help us to be more productive and efficient in order to bring prices down.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu