Before you jump on my neck with the raucous fad that ‘the government has no business doing business’, please be informed that the art of governance itself is a big business – with the president being CEO.

For a while now, there seems to be this unbridled clamor that the solution to our malfunctioning state enterprises lies in leaving them in private hands – no matter what or how. But the sad truth we have failed to face is that, since structural adjustment and its subsequent divestiture implementation programme and what have you, several state assets and businesses have found themselves in private hands. The Billion New Ghana Cedi question then is, has that made our lot any better?

I believe the essence of adopting policy positions is for them to inure to our benefit – and this we can only realize by retrospective evaluation of such interventions. But our so called experts make it seem like fads and governance jargons are an end in themselves - with regards to solving our problems.
It is this new found chorus of sell, sell and sell everything government, without recourse to critical thinking – that got all those state properties handed to individual firms that remain clueless as to how to revitalize them.

The question is; have we accessed the success or otherwise of privatizations thus far? How has that benefited the larger masses of our people and the economy, as compared to sheer repatriation of much needed liquidity by these so called private (mostly foreign) entities into their mother economies?

It is important to know that governments can ensure proper operation of quasi state enterprises. This can be done if the appropriate personnel, not party cronies, are hired to put the proper structures and organizational policies in place. Personnel who are in government business to do business – not to make them political party annexes. Personnel who will be given the room to cut down the waste and employ based on merit, not political expedience. Are we of the conviction that our political parties are so tainted such that they cannot ensure that such fundamental business principles are imbued in our state enterprises and agencies? If the case is such, then what business do we have entrusting them with the ‘big picture’ strategic destiny of our country?

The Asian Tigers including China – who we depend on heavily – have several state run enterprises which are profit centres. How do they manage to do it? I bet we’ll never ask. All we seem to be interested in is the largesse they keep handing down to us.

If government intends to ensure meaningful Private Sector Participation (PSP), it will surely not come about by selling state assets for a song. It will come about by creating an enabling environment for private companies to be able to come in on their own; to provide similar services in a competitive manner.

But since successive governments have failed to create the infrastructure base and business climate (talk of the running cedi) for private entities to survive independently, they have also adopted the ‘parasitic’ approach. That is, instead of building from the ground up by themselves, they rather cash in on existing government assets (with support from their mother countries' strategic baits – e.g. the MCC); milking them for all they are worth; but not to necessarily rejuvenate and grow them