Speech by the new Director General of SIGA, AMB. Edward Boateng
SPEECH BY AMB. EDWARD BOATENG, DIRECTOR GENERAL, STATE INTERESTS AND GOVERNANCE AUTHORITY (SIGA)
Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo;
• Hon. Minister for Finance—Ken Ofori Atta;• Hon. Minister for Public Enterprises—Joseph Cudjoe• Hon. Ministers of State and Members of Parliament• Our Development Partners• Members of the Diplomatic Corps• Board Chairpersons and CEOs• Representatives from Academia and Civil Society Organizations• Distinguished Guests
Today marks another milestone in the history of the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA). This year’s Policy Forum is particularly unique as it is the first, under my leadership at SIGA. It is also exceptionally significant as it dovetails into Ghana’s economic recovery amidst the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Mr. President, you did place a huge task in my hands with my appointment as the new Director-General of SIGA – I thank you and do accept graciously the challenge thrown, for God and country.
Our theme, “Improving Performance of Specified Entities; Leadership and Technology”, brings to bear the twin-role of leadership and technology in our current corporate interaction. Ladies and gentlemen, Ghana’s digitalisation agenda will be incomplete without a thorough understanding of how Specified Entities (SEs) can leverage on this to achieve growth.
The leadership of our country under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo continues to consolidate the solid political and economic foundation laid over the last five years to give full meaning to the hopes and aspirations of our forebears and to guarantee socio-economic transformation of our nation for the betterment of the people. It is not lost on any of us here, the instrumentality of Specified Entities in the realisation of the hopes and aspirations of a Ghana Beyond Aid – a blueprint to achieving economic independence and the cornerstone of a resilient African economy.
Distinguished guests, impacting change even though dynamic should not be a slow grinding wheel. We need to move with a renewed sense of purpose. Having had the rare opportunity ofserving in China as Ambassador under the government of H.ENana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, I can boldly say that China’s economic rise is not rocket science. China is what it is now because of the determination by the Chinese people, especially leadership of Chinese SOEs under Deng Xiaoping to give their country a new image. The Chinese SOEs created the economic superhighway which unleashed the energy and creativity of the Chinese people that has propelled China from a backward developing country to a first-class technology savvy country within four decades, and helping them to lift 800million people out of abject poverty.
The building blocks of Ghana’s development have been given a deeper boost with the introduction of the Free SHS and TVET programmes, which benefits will be realised in some 10-20 yearsfrom today. The only way to ensure the total success of theseprogrammes is for us gathered here today to begin the construction of Ghana’s economic superhighway – but are we ready and up to the task?
It would interest us to know that a large proportion of SEs are yet to submit their management and audited accounts for the 2020 fiscal year, and some have not submitted accounts as far back as the 2017 fiscal year. Colleagues, we cannot manage that which we cannot measure. The books have to balance if we are to achieve our goal of building an economic superhighway, else our vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid will continue to be a pipe dream. Specified Entities should be the catalyst to help grow our economy.
Your Excellency, my interactions with the Specified Entities and a review of available documents in these past few weeks since I assumed duty at SIGA, have revealed the challenge of a lack of policy coherence among State institutions. Conflicting policies and actions across government agencies, departments and Specified Entities have blurred the common goal and resulted in needless turf wars, duplication of efforts, delays and high cost of doing business, among others. Streamlining existing policies or introducing new clear ones that help address these and other legacy issues will be an important first step to sharpen our operational efficiency and effectiveness and help secure investment.
We are under no illusion that these tasks of effective oversight of Specified Entities will be easy, as every status quo has its beneficiaries who will struggle mightily to retain their privileges to the detriment of our polity. However, these tasks devolve from the responsibility that H.E the President has conferred upon me, and with his support, I will do my utmost to vindicate the trust that he has placed in me. Mr. President, I hope I can count on you because we have to sanction people. People who do not perform must be fired, and when SIGA makes such recommendation, it is my prayer that it will meet your blessing.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ghana is going digital and we must be part of it. We must leverage on Ghana’s digital transformation agenda to harness the potential of Specified Entities. We must move away from the notion that one needs to sweat before it can be said that he or she is hardworking. In today’s world, you have to work smart and not hard. All the countries we aspire to today; the US, UK, China, Germany, Singapore to mention a few, and even Rwanda, have placed meritocracy, pragmatism and honesty at their core. We cannot continue to do the same things after 65 years of independence and expect different results. We have to be tough on ourselves.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has just recently been established here in Accra, and what better way is there for Ghana to benefit fully from the immense growth and development potential that it offers than to reel in the power of green technologies and systems, create institutional memory and information databases. Data in the right hands for the right use will bring radical transformation to us as a nation.
Mr. President, Ladies and gentlemen, we at SIGA are faced with a challenge, surmountable with the collaboration of all stakeholders. We know it will not be a walk in the park but we are confident that with your support and that of other stakeholders, we shall achieve our mandate and collectively help to transform this nation into the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ we all hope to see. To the leadership of Specified Entities, we will continuously knock on your door and hold you to task. You owe it to the nation just as my team and I also owe our mandate and milestones to the nation. Leadership and technology in our current dispensation are like two sides of the same coin and just as a ship cannot sail without a rudder, so does it seem that to improve performance of Specified Entities, we must leverage on technology and our ethical standards to achieve our individual and collective goals.
We are in this to create change and not to be just a redundant part of the change machine. We must leave an unblemished legacy. If Ghana is to remain the gateway to Africa, the buck stops with us, as leadership of approximately one third of Ghana’s GDP to buckle up and ride through the tempest. Enough is not good enough and to bring back that Ghanaian exceptionalism, we must do more and challenge one another. We must go beyond the finish line and keep going – this is the only way to improve the performance of our Specified Entities.
I thank you.
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