Head of Paintsil, Paintsil & Co., Kweku Paintsil, says State Owned Institutions and public institutions in general have been characterized by a seeming lack in transparency.

According to him, the opaqueness that has characterized the operations of these institutions has fuelled the impunity which has led to the great economic losses they have accrued over the years.

“There’s a lack of transparency regarding these public institutions, state organisations as we have put them. But thank God today we have the Right to Information Act. I’m putting this in the context that I am putting it because citizens must be citizens," he said

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, he stated that the remedy to keeping public institutions on their toes and accountable to the people is by encouraging citizens to show interest in the activities of public institutions.

“People must be activated to take an interest in our state owned enterprises. The kind of figures that we come to this studio to hear must be put out in the marketplace, people ought to be educated. We have civic education, people ought to be alerted to some of these things, people ought to raise questions.”

He further noted that the politicization of the governance structures of these public institutions have rather worsened the situation.

“The point has already been made, we’re talking about every government that comes of course must determine who must get in there, a lot of impunity.

“We can’t forget about corruption, and the lack of political will to prosecute people. But in Ghana here, when you’re failing then they give you a reward, a very big reward and they ask you to resign your position and that appears to be all.

“These are the kinds of things we need to revisit, we need to come to ourselves as a country and make a determination that we cannot have this thing year in year out and everyday it’s a tale of woes one story or the other,” he said.