The Centre for Environmental Management and Sustainable Energy (CEMSE) is calling on the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) and the Ministry of Finance to publicly disclose the annual performance contracts of state-owned energy companies, arguing that access to agreed targets is essential for meaningful public accountability.
CEMSE Executive Director Benjamin Nsiah said publishing the contracts would enable citizens, investors and other stakeholders to determine what energy-sector entities have been tasked to achieve and whether management has delivered on those commitments.
The call comes as Ghana intensifies efforts to improve the financial sustainability and operational performance of state-owned energy institutions, including companies whose financial weaknesses continue to create significant exposure for the state.
Public Results Need Public Targets
Performance contracts are not simply administrative documents.
SIGA’s own framework states that specified entities are required to conclude annual performance compacts, which set out financial targets and other operational indicators to be achieved during the financial year under Regulation 196 of the Public Financial Management Regulations, 2019 (L.I. 2378).
SIGA also explains that performance is assessed against agreed key performance indicators covering financial, operational, strategic and governance outcomes.
CEMSE therefore argues that publishing the eventual results without giving the public access to the underlying commitments limits the ability to properly assess performance.
“Disclosing these contracts would empower stakeholders to assess whether targets are realistic, monitor compliance, and hold management accountable for results.”
Benjamin Nsiah, Executive Director, CEMSE
The distinction is important: financial statements show what an institution achieved financially, while a performance contract establishes what it was expected to achieve.
Energy Sector Remains Under Financial Pressure
The demand takes on added significance given the financial position of several state-owned energy institutions.
SIGA’s 2025 State Ownership Report shows that Ghana’s wider state-owned enterprise sector returned to profitability, recording GH¢19.80 billion in consolidated net profit after tax in 2025, compared with a GH¢2.25 billion loss in 2024. Revenue also rose 28.12% to GH¢176.43 billion.
However, the improvement at the aggregate level masks continuing vulnerabilities within the energy sector.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) accounted for GH¢82.31 billion of the GH¢281.99 billion in total liabilities recorded across the state-owned enterprise portfolio in 2025.
ECG was also among five entities that recorded losses in every year from 2021 to 2025.
That makes transparency over performance targets particularly relevant to the electricity sector, where weaknesses at one state-owned institution can create financial consequences across the wider power value chain.
Disclosure Could Strengthen Energy Reforms
Making the contracts publicly available would allow stakeholders to track performance beyond headline profit or loss figures.
For energy companies, the indicators could provide a clearer basis for assessing issues such as revenue mobilisation, operational efficiency, debt management, infrastructure delivery, system reliability and governance.
Such scrutiny would also help distinguish between improvements resulting from stronger underlying operations and those arising from temporary factors such as exchange-rate movements or changes in financing costs.
The 2025 SIGA report, for example, attributed part of the broader SOE recovery to a reversal in foreign-exchange losses and a significant decline in finance costs.
That context reinforces the need to examine performance against operational targets rather than relying solely on annual financial outcomes.
Accountability Must Extend Beyond Reporting
Ghana’s energy-sector reform agenda requires substantial public resources and continued government intervention, making the performance of state-owned companies a matter of wider economic significance.
Where utilities accumulate liabilities or fail to meet operational objectives, the consequences can extend to government finances, independent power producers, consumers and private investors.
Public disclosure of performance contracts would therefore give stakeholders a clearer basis for judging whether reforms are translating into measurable improvements.
The latest SIGA shows that the state-owned enterprise sector can deliver a significant financial turnaround.
The more important question for the energy sector, however, is whether that improvement can be sustained through stronger operations, better governance and measurable delivery against agreed targets.
For CEMSE, publishing the contracts would close an important accountability gap: the public should be able to see not only how state-owned energy companies performed, but what they were formally expected to deliver in the first place.
READ ALSO: UK Imposes Sanctions on Israeli Settlements in Occupied West Bank
