- SIGA’s 2025 Numbers Show Recovery, But ECG, Dividends and Negative Equity Remain the Real Test
Ghana’s state-owned enterprise sector has returned to profit, but the headline turnaround may obscure a more difficult question: has the country genuinely fixed the structural weaknesses in its state-owned companies, or has a more favourable macroeconomic environment temporarily lifted an otherwise fragile portfolio?
The 2025 State Ownership Report released by the State Interests and Governance Authority presents the strongest financial performance from the sector in several years.
SOE revenue jumped 28.12% to GH¢176.43 billion, profit before interest and tax rose to GH¢25.49 billion, and net profit after tax reached GH¢19.80 billion, reversing a GH¢2.25 billion loss in 2024.
On those numbers alone, Ghana appears to have achieved something important.
For years, state-owned enterprises have been regarded as one of the country’s most persistent sources of fiscal risk businesses that often consume public capital, accumulate arrears, rely on sovereign guarantees and, in several cases, generate inadequate returns relative to the assets entrusted to them.
But it should not be confused with a completed reform. The first warning comes from the source of the improvement.
A stronger cedi helped SOEs move from a GH¢12.01 billion foreign-exchange loss in 2024 to GH¢11.72 billion in net foreign-exchange earnings in 2025. That is a swing of more than GH¢23 billion in one year.
That matters because it raises the question of how much of the improvement came from operational transformation and how much resulted from a more benign macroeconomic environment. If a large part of the profit rebound reflects currency appreciation and reduced finance costs, then a renewed depreciation cycle or interest-rate shock could expose the sector again.
The strongest SOEs should therefore be judged not merely by whether they made money in 2025, but by whether margins, productivity, cash generation, cost discipline and capital efficiency have structurally improved.
Ten SOEs remained profitable throughout the five years reviewed, demonstrating that parts of Ghana’s state-owned portfolio can operate commercially and consistently.
But five entities recorded losses every year between 2021 and 2025. Those chronic loss-makers include ECG, Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company, GNPA, Graphic Communications Group Company and Ghana Digital Centre.
Persistent losses over a five-year period are not cyclical noise.
If an enterprise has failed to produce a profit through multiple economic environments, the issue becomes whether its business model, tariff structure, capital structure, management framework or public-service mandate is fundamentally misaligned.
The power distributor accounted for GH¢82.31 billion of SOE liabilities in 2025. Against total SOE liabilities of GH¢281.99 billion, that means a single institution accounted for a very substantial portion of the sector’s obligations.
ECG is not merely another company in the state portfolio. Its financial condition has implications for power producers, fuel suppliers, banks, government guarantees and ultimately the national budget.
A profitable SOE sector in aggregate can therefore coexist with serious systemic risk if one or two large entities remain financially weak.
Six entities, including AirtelTigo, GIHOC Distilleries and Tema Oil Refinery, carried negative equity throughout the 2021-2025 period.
Negative equity is more than an accounting inconvenience. For an ordinary private-sector company, sustained negative equity would trigger difficult questions about solvency, recapitalisation, restructuring or closure. State ownership should not eliminate those questions. It makes them more urgent because taxpayers are the ultimate shareholders.
Only two SOEs paid dividends to government in 2025 Ghana Reinsurance Company and TDC Company and their combined payment was just GH¢16.00 million, down 29.36% from the previous year. That figure sits uncomfortably beside the sector’s reported GH¢19.80 billion profit.
Profit and distributable cash are not the same thing. Companies may need to retain earnings for capital expenditure, working capital, debt repayment or investment.
But the gap is nevertheless striking. If taxpayers own enterprises that collectively report almost GH¢20 billion in net earnings, they are entitled to ask how much cash ultimately returns to the state and why.
The comparison with Joint Venture Companies makes the question sharper. Minority-interest JVCs generated GH¢61.32 billion in net profit and contributed GH¢1.19 billion in dividends, accounting for 97.12% of all dividends across the portfolio.
That suggests government may, in some cases, be earning stronger financial returns as a minority shareholder than as the controlling owner. This is not proof that privatisation is automatically superior.
But it does raise an important corporate-governance question: does state control sometimes weaken commercial discipline?
Other State Entities saw their deficit widen from GH¢2.18 billion to GH¢10.48 billion. Their accumulated fund moved from positive GH¢15.47 billion to negative GH¢41.14 billion, driven substantially by the Bank of Ghana’s GH¢93 billion negative equity position.
That deterioration illustrates why the government’s overall state-asset position cannot be assessed solely by celebrating SOE profit. One part of the portfolio can improve while another deteriorates dramatically.
SIGA reports GH¢3.03 billion in outstanding loan guarantees, GH¢14.73 billion in on-lent loans and US$3.70 million in crystallised PPP contingent liabilities. Each of those represents a potential transmission mechanism from poorly performing state entities to the sovereign balance sheet.
The state can therefore appear fiscally disciplined at the central-government level while risks accumulate off balance sheet in entities whose debts may eventually return to the taxpayer. That is why the most important development in the SIGA report may not be the profit figure.
The Ministry of Finance introduced new public financial management guidelines in May 2025 requiring quarterly internal audit and commitment-control reports and subjecting centrally approved procurement to commitment authorisation.
Public-sector procurement infractions subsequently fell sharply from GH¢18.40 billion in 2024 to GH¢2.20 billion in 2025.
That is potentially a more durable indicator of reform than the movement in the cedi.
Improved procurement controls, tighter commitment management, stronger governance oversight and better performance contracting can permanently change how public enterprises behave.
SIGA assessed 70 entities that had executed performance contracts and intensified engagement with those failing statutory reporting obligations.
The Authority also intends to integrate government’s 24-Hour Economy initiatives into future performance-contract and monitoring frameworks. That is the correct direction, but performance contracts will matter only if poor performance carries consequences.
Ghana has spent years diagnosing weaknesses in state enterprises. The persistent challenge has been enforcement. Boards are appointed. Performance agreements are signed. Audit findings are issued. Recapitalisations are announced.
The real reform test is therefore whether government is prepared to distinguish between enterprises that require temporary support, entities performing public-service mandates that should be transparently subsidised, and commercial companies that have simply failed to justify continued taxpayer exposure.
The Authority recommended liquidation of Ghana Railway Company Limited following prolonged financial, operational and labour difficulties, with employees proposed to be absorbed into the Ghana Railway Development Authority and the latter restructured into a combined commercial and regulatory institution.
That recommendation is significant because it suggests failure need not always result in another bailout.
For Ghana’s state-enterprise reforms to become credible, closure, merger, recapitalisation, partial divestment and restructuring must all remain available depending on the economics of each entity.
Employment across Specified Entities increased 5.45% to 98,724, adding 5,104 jobs. Women represented 30.02% of the workforce, up from 29.30%, while female employment grew 8.02%, almost twice the 4.39% increase among men.
Those numbers show state entities remain economically significant beyond their balance sheets. They employ tens of thousands of people, control major infrastructure and influence energy, transport, finance, housing, communications and industrial policy.
The correct conclusion from the 2025 report is therefore neither that Ghana’s SOEs are failing nor that the problem has been solved.
But the quality of that improvement now needs to be tested. If profits survive a weaker cedi, higher financing costs and less favourable macroeconomic conditions, the turnaround will look structural.
If persistent loss-makers are restructured and negative-equity entities are forced onto credible recovery pathways, the governance reforms will look serious. If taxpayers begin receiving meaningful dividends from commercially profitable companies, state ownership will become easier to justify.
And if ECG’s liabilities and other concentrated fiscal risks are materially reduced, government can credibly argue that the portfolio has moved from recovery to resilience.
SIGA’s own conclusion captures the challenge. “The gains of FY2025 must not become a temporary rebound.”
