Ghana SOE Profit and Loss 2024: Who Made Money, Who Didn't.

Ghana's 54 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) collectively lost GHS 10.3 billion in FY2024, even though almost two-thirds of them turned a profit. That contradiction, most SOEs in the black, the portfolio still deep in the red, is the story hiding inside the government's own numbers.

Ranking Ghana's State Owned Enterprises by Profitability

The data comes from the [2024 State Ownership Report](https://siga.gov.gh/siga-resources/2024-state-ownership-report-2/), published by Ghana's State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), the agency responsible for overseeing the commercial performance of state enterprises. Buried in Appendix 4, a dense ranking table, is a full profit and loss scorecard for every SOE, joint venture company, and statutory entity the state owns a stake in. We pulled it apart to build a leaderboard, and the picture it paints is worth a closer look.

The scorecard: 35 profitable, 19 in the red

Of the 54 SOEs SIGA tracks, 35 posted a profit in FY2024, about 65 percent. On paper, that is a majority win. But the scale of the losses among the other 19 tells a different story:

- Total profit earned by the 35 profitable SOEs: GHS 11.0 billion

- Total loss racked up by the 19 loss-making SOEs: GHS 21.3 billion

- Net position across all 54 SOEs: -GHS 10.3 billion

In other words, the losers lost almost twice what the winners earned. A handful of large, capital-intensive state enterprises are dragging the entire portfolio underwater, while most of the smaller entities post modest, forgettable numbers either way.

The big winners

Profit in the SOE portfolio is also heavily concentrated. Just three entities, the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), and Bui Power Authority, earned a combined GHS 6.7 billion. That is 61 percent of the entire profit pool, generated by 3 of the 35 profitable SOEs.

The top six gainers for FY2024:

1. GETFund (Ghana Education Trust Fund): +GHS 3,272.3 million

2. GPHA (Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority): +GHS 2,404.2 million

3. Bui Power Authority: +GHS 1,040.2 million

4. GDPC (Ghana Deposit Protection Corporation): +GHS 996.0 million

5. GNPC (Ghana National Petroleum Corporation): +GHS 575.4 million

6. Ghana EXIM Bank: +GHS 547.2 million

GETFund's lead is notable given its role: it's the statutory fund financing education infrastructure and scholarships, not a typical commercial operator, yet it out-earned every other SOE in the country.

The utilities black hole

If GETFund and GPHA are the good news, Ghana's power and water utilities are the bad news, and by a wide margin. The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) alone lost GHS 8.3 billion in FY2024, the single largest loss recorded by any SOE. Add Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) at -GHS 4.9 billion, the Volta River Authority (VRA) at -GHS 569.6 million, the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) at -GHS 650.8 million, and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) at -GHS 113.5 million, and the power and water utility cluster alone lost GHS 14.5 billion, more than the entire SOE portfolio's net loss.

Put another way: strip out the utilities, and the rest of the SOE portfolio would be solidly profitable. Ghana's state-owned enterprise problem is, to a significant extent, a power-and-water problem.

The top six losers for FY2024:

1. ECG (Electricity Company of Ghana): -GHS 8,255.8 million

2. GWCL (Ghana Water Company Limited): -GHS 4,877.5 million

3. COCOBOD (Ghana Cocoa Board): -GHS 4,057.0 million

4. TOR (Tema Oil Refinery): -GHS 1,543.7 million

5. AirtelTigo Ghana: -GHS 784.8 million

6. NEDCo(Northern Electricity Distribution Company): -GHS 650.8 million

Cocoa's costly chain

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) posted the third-largest loss in the entire portfolio at GHS 4.06 billion, and it isn't alone. Two cocoa-linked joint venture companies also bled cash in FY2024: Cocoa Processing Company (-GHS 192.1 million) and PBC Ltd (-GHS 15.2 million). Ghana's signature export crop, in other words, is currently a net drag on the state's books across nearly its entire value chain, from regulator to processor to buying company.

Why this matters

SOE losses are not abstract numbers. When a state enterprise runs a deficit, the shortfall typically shows up somewhere else: government subsidies, unpaid debts to fuel and equipment suppliers, or arrears that eventually land back on the state's balance sheet. ECG's GHS 8.3 billion loss and GWCL's GHS 4.9 billion loss are the kind of numbers that shape decisions on electricity tariffs, water pricing, and how aggressively the government pursues utility sector reform or privatization.

It's also worth noting that SOEs are not the only state entities in the report. SIGA separately tracks 68 "Other State Entities," mostly statutory and regulatory bodies that report a surplus or deficit rather than a commercial profit or loss. The largest deficit in that group dwarfs anything on the SOE side: the Bank of Ghana recorded a GHS 9.27 billion deficit in FY2024, driven largely by foreign exchange revaluation effects on its balance sheet. By contrast, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) posted the two largest surpluses in that category, at GHS 2.73 billion and GHS 2.55 billion respectively.

Among the 16 joint venture companies the state co-owns, GCB Bank turned in the strongest result with GHS 1.2 billion in profit after tax, showing that state-linked banking assets remain a relative bright spot.

The bottom line

Ghana's state enterprise portfolio isn't uniformly broken, most SOEs are technically profitable, and a few are genuinely strong performers. But the numbers that matter most are the biggest ones, and those belong overwhelmingly to the utilities sector and, to a lesser extent, the cocoa chain. Until ECG, GWCL, and COCOBOD turn their numbers around, Ghana's SOE portfolio will keep posting a net loss no matter how many smaller entities stay in the black.

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