The President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe has called for some State Owned Enterprises to be privatized in order to ensure their profitability to the state.

According to him, although there has been some improvement in the performances of some State Owned Enterprises following the employment of some world-class professionals, the boards of these enterprises have been a stumbling block.

He stated that the overly-politicised nature of these boards has led to many interferences in the work of these world-class professionals thus posing an additional challenge.

This he says would be avoided if the enterprises are privatized.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Franklin Cudjoe said, “the boards have become overly-politicized and they tend to interfere in the work of most of these agencies. And I think that is where the challenge really is.”

“Otherwise I still think that yes, there are a few of them that could do much better if they were treated as purely private enterprises. I mean, ECG for instance, it’s a shame that the private sector participation that we embarked upon with the Americans failed. But you could tell that that was sorely needed,” he added.

He further stated that despite some SOEs not lending themselves to the notion of privatization, for instance the Ghana Water Company Limited, their excuse for their huge losses is rather “very hard to take.”

“I believe if you consistently listen to the Ghana Water Company, the excuse that by the nature of how they’re set up they’re necessarily supposed to be making losses is very hard to take. Water is treated with a lot of tax-payer money, you just don’t give water out and you fold your arms and say that people are not paying bills and so you should be considered as a publicly free good. I’m not sure if it were my private money, I would be thinking in those terms,” he said.

Franklin Cudjoe has thus suggested poor performing companies be put up for sale.