Ranking Member on Parliament’s Employment, Social Welfare and Public Enterprises Committee, Dr. Kwabena Donkor says the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) is yet to present a report to Parliament as mandated by law.
According to him, despite there being a SIGA report floating in the media space, the governance body has failed to officially present a copy to Parliament for deliberations.
This he says flouts Section 28{3} of the SIGA law.
“The SIGA law, section 28(3) of the SIGA law is very clear that SIGA through the Minister responsible has to present the annual report to Parliament, but that has not been done. As we speak, this report is out; officially I don’t know who released the report.
“It’s definitely not officially from SIGA neither is it from the Minister of Public Enterprises. So officially that report has not come to Parliament,” he said.
He further noted that the report being floated is a 2020 report and has little to no bearing on the current constitution of Boards of State Owned Enterprises.
“But let’s also be conscious of the fact that this refers to 2020. 2020 the office of the Minister for State Enterprises was non-existent, and a number of these entities had new Boards in 2021. The old Boards which are covered in 2020 have been reconstituted,” he said.
He opined that should SIGA be looking to fulfilling its mandate of keeping State Enterprises in check, it would rather be beneficial for it to start by setting a good example.
“Since SIGA itself is a governance body overseeing State Owned Enterprises, state interests and state entities, such as the commission, regulatory bodies, SIGA should be the first to obey the law, to go by its own enabling Act, Governance Regulation.
“If we defy the law in this way, what is our moral right to expect from the entities we oversee to follow the law. That is a major challenge,” he said.