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Minister for Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe as part of his working visit to state-owned enterprises has visited the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company Limited to inspect its financial and operating performance.

The working visit of the Minister for Public Enterprises saw a presentation of the success story of BOST from 2017 where the company under the leadership of Mr Edwin Provencal has made significant strides in the revenue of the company.

BOST in a presentation before the Minister of Public Enterprises and his team, disclosed that it is expecting to take delivery of some pipelines from the United States of America by the end of August 2021 after it has been delayed for 12 years as a result of some managerial impediments, costing the country 63 million dollars.

Addressing the media during the tour at the Accra Plain Depot to see repaired equipment by BOST, Joseph Cudjoe praised the Managing Director of the company, Edwin Provencal and his team for putting to good use the BOST margin which has been increased to 9 pesewas.

He commended the management for the turnaround that has been achieved in a short space of time and also for the introduction of policies that have been developed operationally to make sure that BOST operations are brought to the highest level of professional corporate management.

“I have been so much impressed given when we have taken this trip to Accra Plain Depot (APD) and seeing the ongoing improvement in facilities that in recent past were not so well maintained and a lot of maintenance improvement and additions that are being done. It has been very impressive,” he commended.

“As a minister for public enterprises, I have seen a change and I am so convinced that President Akufo-Addo’s vision of getting competent CEOs, Board of Directors, and competent management teams to manage the state-owned enterprises so that they will deliver results that will enable the state-owned enterprises to contribute to Ghana’s budget rather than becoming a problem to the country’s budget,” he added.

The Minister noted that it is President Akufo-Addo’s vision to turn the State-owned enterprises around and make the performance of State-owned enterprises become part of the assessment of the performance of the government.

“We are all aware how the state-owned enterprises have been characterised with indebtedness, non-profitable operations and strikes, because when they run them down and the workers are dejected, they will be calling for a capital injection from the government. It is the President's vision to turn the state-owned enterprises around,” he disclosed.

“Under the watch of the President, it is so clear that he wants to make the performance of state-owned enterprises become part of the assessment of the performance of the government so that if a government is doing well, state-owned enterprises' performance will also reflect the government’s own performance and when state-owned enterprises are being run down, it means that the government is not also performing,” he added.

He stressed that, “we know how in recent past state-owned enterprises could not prepare an audited account but today, it is a different story. I have visited a couple of them and BOST today. All those I have visited; they have impressive stories to tell”.

He, however, encouraged Ghanaians to pick interest in the performance of the State-owned enterprises as they would add to the production asset to create employment when they are well run as well as generate revenue to contribute to the effort of the government to get more roads, hospitals, schools and support the Free SHS Policy.

“I believe that we should support the government’s intention to make sure that it is a One-District-One-Factory project, which will deliver a set of production assets and then state-owned enterprises when we combine, Ghana will be moving forward in job creation and wealth generation,” he made the clarion call.