H. E. François Pujolas, the Ambassador of France to Ghana and the Honorable Charles Adu Boahen, Deputy Minister of Finance opened the technical workshop on Corporate Governance for State-Owned Enterprises jointly organized by AFD (Agence Française de Développement) and the Ministry of Finance, at the Labadi Beach Hotel on Thursday, 13th July 2017.

The objective of this workshop was to strengthen the financial and management capacity of the SOEs in order to increase their capacity to finance their capital expenditure on their own balance sheet without state guarantee.

The workshop has also afforded the opportunity for AFD to present its overall strategy and share its experience in other countries in terms of non-sovereign financing as well as the modalities for assessing such funding. A one-on-one session with the heads of departments and managers is billed to be the platform on which the SOEs can glide to kick-start the process.

“Despite the fact that public debt must be contained, the country still needs to increase its investment which will serve as a catalyst for growth. This is where this technical workshop on Corporate Governance becomes relevant. Creating the right platform for SOEs to be able to borrow on their own balance sheet without State guarantee becomes crucial to secure Ghana’s future economic development”, the Ambassador stated. “With the kind of robust economic environment Ghana has, nothing should stop the SOEs from taking centre stage in the government’s quest to reduce public debt”, Yvonne Quansah, Director at the External Resources Mobilization Department of Ministry of Finance stated for her part.

The workshop has been facilitated by experts from the Operations Department of the AFD Head Office, along with the Program Managers from the Centre for Financial Economic and Banking Studies, which is AFD’s Corporate University (CEFEB). It was organised in the framework of the “France in Ghana 1957-2017: moving forward together” initiative, as one of the many events that the French Embassy in Ghana is setting up during this special year to celebrate 60 years of bilateral relations between France and Ghana.