The Chief Executive of Dalex Finance, Kenneth Thompson says non-performing State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are solely responsible for the country's economic misfortunes.

According to him, this economic downturn can be averted should government sell SOEs to private investors.

The Chartered Accountant made these assertions while contributing to discussions on Joy FM's Super Morning Show on Tuesday.

“Sell them [state-owned enterprises] off. What is the worst that can happen?” he wondered as he engaged host, Kojo Yankson.

He further explained that most of the workers in charge of state-owned businesses attain their position on the ticket of familiarity with the appointing authority who is mostly the President.

In his opinion, this action does not contribute to increased productivity in SOEs.

Mr Thompson eventually alluded to a principle of business that states that “If the people in charge of a business did not have any skin in it, the business was not going to succeed.”

However, his co-panellist, Dr Eric Oduro Osae was against the position.

He noted that SOEs could not be sold to private companies due to national security implications.

For Dr Osae, handing over SOEs to private investors would mean the investors would have greater shares, which could have severe implications on the economy of the country.

But the CEO of Dalex Finance, rebutted the claims of his co-panelist, and labelled it as an emotional argument, and highlighted some aspects of state-owned businesses that were failing, such as performance management.

The Chartered Accountant emphasised that until employees in SOEs had a stake in the business, the country's economy would continue to suffer. 

To curb the issue of insufficient productivity at SOEs, Mr Thompson proffered, "Let’s get institutions where people have skin in the game and there’s true accountability."