Ghana Water Company has been highlighted as a major state-owned entity that incurred substantial losses from 2019 to 2023.
The State Interest and Governance Authority’s 2023 report reveals that Ghana Water Limited experienced an average annual loss of 845.6 million cedis over these four years.
During a media briefing in Accra, SIGA Director General John Boadu explained that the losses were due to the company providing potable water services without recouping the costs. He pointed out the challenge of balancing social responsibilities with financial sustainability.
Notably, Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company, GNPA Limited, Tema Oil Refinery, and Ghana Water Company all incurred consistent losses, while Bui Power Authority, ESLA Plc, Ghana National Gas Company, Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund, State Housing Company, and TDC made consistent profits between 2019 and 2023.
The Director General of SIGA, John Boadu, attributed the losses partly to the 30 percent depreciation of the cedi against the US dollar and the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme implementation in 2022.
He, however, assured that SIGA will continue working with these entities to minimise losses.
Mr. Boadu emphasized that these issues were identified through SIGA’s commitment to ensuring state-owned enterprises undergo thorough audits, thereby fostering transparency and accountability.
” We are establishing what we call portal entity that will link to all our entities in real-time, instead of them walking to present their accounts, with a press of a button, we will be able to know each and every entity and their activities they are doing. Because of the fact, that, just a few of the entities have enormous resources and they are they also the ones that make a lot of the losses, because of the space they find themselves,” Mr. Boadu said.
He continued, “Companies like ECG, Ghana Water have not only profit-making function. We also have a function that ensures that the citizenry also benefits from the services that we provide, “
