Overstaffing at state-owned enterprises a huge burden on the public purse – Alex Mould

Mould says overstaffing is part of reasons state agencies are not posting profit

Recruitment into state agencies must be strategic - Mould

SIGA reports show that a lot of state agencies posted losses for 2020

Former CEO of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Alex Mould, has alleged that state-owned enterprises including the Bulk

Read full articleOil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST), COCOBOD, and GNPC are overstaffed which has contributed to their inability to make profits.

According to Mould, recruitment into the state agencies like BOST must be on merit to ensure they stay viable and profitable but unfortunately, that is not the case, asaaseradio.com reports.

“But of course, 500 people in an organisation that should not have more than 250 people, in my view because they have only five depots and these depots should not be manned by 20 to 30 people and the head office should not be manned by more than 50 people in my view,” Mould said.

“So, we are overstaffed and as such, this is going to be a burden on the financials of any company and if you look throughout the state-owned enterprises (SOEs), you can see that they have increased the staff of all the SOEs and this is a burden, especially when we talk about profitability of companies.

“Unless the objective is to give jobs to people without ensuring that these companies are viable and profitable because they will continuously be a burden to the taxpayer because the government will always have to inject money into these organisations,” Alex Mould is quoted to have said.

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) made these comments reacting to a report by the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) that showed that a lot of state-owned agencies including BOST and COCOBOD posted losses for the 2020 financial year.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of BOST, Edwin Provencal, has also claimed that BOST made a profit of GHC30 million at the end of 2020.

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