NPP Communications Director hopeful Dennis Miracles Aboagye has accused the government of putting a political spin on the latest State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) report by presenting reported profits by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as evidence of a dramatic turnaround.
Mr Aboagye said the narrative began with the Minister of Government Communications and quickly spread across the media.
“The first post on this media report came from the Government Communications Minister. He started this whole spin,” he said.
“Within 30 minutes, all media houses were flying news cards and talking about accepting 19 billion cedis profits, which is supposed to be a dramatic turnaround of these state institutions that we know have fundamental structural reform issues,” he added.
Mr Aboagye questioned whether longstanding challenges at institutions such as COCOBOD could have been resolved within a year.
“Anybody that is going to do politics will tell you that there is no way that from January 7, 2025, to December 2025, we would have turned around COCOBOD and their issues,” he said.
He argued that reported profits should first be examined to establish their source rather than automatically being celebrated as evidence of improved performance.
“So, if COCOBOD is making profit, we slow down and we query the source of that profit,” he stated.
Mr Aboagye also challenged the treatment of surpluses recorded by some institutions, particularly entities that receive government funding for specific programmes.
“Institutions who have received direct tax money to distribute to Ghanaian citizens who are beneficiaries, like YEE and COO, were now being quoted of making profit because money that were given to them, for them to pay Ghanaian beneficiaries, which they did not need or should pay them,” he said.
“That is what is different. That is all,” he added.
According to him, the reported profitability of SOEs is not a new development and should be considered against previous SIGA reports.
“Before 2025, this report, the previous report had 35 SOEs making profit. It is not as if this is the first time these SOEs are making profit,” he said.
“It is not. You are the one who has created this conversation for yourself.”
He said the focus should instead be on individual institutions and what had changed in their operations.
“What we would have done now is that we would have gone into the organisations one by one, and now begin to ask, ‘Oh, what have you done differently? This is amazing. What are the issues?’” he said.
Mr Aboagye further disputed the interpretation of the reported GH¢19 billion figure, noting that a significant portion represented surpluses.
“Your own report says that, no, no, no, no. Even though I am telling you that we have made 19 billion, 6.5 billion of that money are just surpluses,” he said.
He argued that unspent funds could in some cases point to underperformance rather than efficiency.
“It means that those institutions actually may have underperformed,” he said.
“Because monies that were given to them for them to use to do their work and give us resources for the future, they left it in the bank.”
He stressed that such surpluses were not necessarily a new phenomenon.
“And this is not new anyway. Almost every year it happens. It’s not new. It’s not new,” he said.
