Commentary

State Enterprises Must Give Optimum

BY DR. KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO, DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION EXPERT.

If Ghana is to quickly recover from the current economic challenges and be able to make life and conditions better for the people, then each and everyone will have to play their role in support of the country’s national agenda for socio-economic development.

It is important to note that the agenda for national development will not be an easy task, but if everyone works hard and contributes their quota, things will be far better for everyone in the country.

It is worth mentioning that it is rather unfortunate, some state enterprises can be said to be not performing well, due to greed and corrupt practices. Some are not making use of good governance practices, but rather creating conditions that are highly unfavorable for workers to have their peace and put in their best to ensure satisfactory productivity.

Mention can be made of corrupt procurement practices, which “create, loot and share public resources”.

The overall result of this is poor performance and inability to generate more revenue/funds to support central government revenue generation.

What happens very often is that corrupt officials’ team up to do little to improve the financial position of their state enterprises, sometimes rendering it worse than what they came to meet.

There are a number of cases in this country, where at the initial stages, management found it very difficult to make meaningful strides due to limited resources and other problems, much as they tried.

In spite of this, some were able to overcome the hurdles through new leadership and management focus to make things better.

This brought remarkable improvement to Staff welfare, as well as some public enterprises.

Good and prosperous life does not come easy, especially within organizations. They come about as a result of discipline, selflessness, dedication and time management, and productivity, among others.

Also, the rules of the organization, welfare packages and all other incentives have to be applied to favour anyone who works for the organization.

In organizations where things are transparent, everyone feels good and works hard toward the general good.

This is what all organizations, together with their staff and management ought to do to achieve the ultimate. It is possible and attainable and all public enterprises will have to put in their best to achieve such feats.

State Enterprises or Organizations should never consider their activities as unimportant or begin to resign their operations to the mantra of business as usual, not caring and not bringing in innovative ways that will increase productivity.

It is in the light of this that Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) ought to be highly commended for being able to make a positive turnaround and bring about great improvement to the economy.

The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) recorded a revenue of GH¢1.12 billion in 2021, almost two-fold the GH¢632 million recorded in 2020. Out of that amount, GH¢671.6 million came from product sales, GH¢380.4 million from the BOST Margin, GH¢52.64 million from storage and rack, GH¢14.83 million from marine transportation, with GH¢2.07 million coming from products swap.

These successes were achieved largely to some new policies, discipline and commitment.

This is what all state enterprises or public organizations ought to do to ensure that assets are stocked and protected for the country’s socioeconomic development.

All sectors of the economy must grow, but this should not come from the private sector alone.

The Public Sector must also do all it can to bring in such improvement.

Discipline on the part of Governing Boards, Management and members of staff is the way to go.

When all sectors grow well, we will all end up contributing various sources of income to the national kitty and the result will be nothing but national development and improvement in the lives of the people.