Every seasoned business editor knows the oldest trick in the public accounting handbook. When a government wants to trumpet economic recovery without doing the heavy lifting of structural reform, it looks for paper gains, hides behind currency fluctuations, and splashes headline profit numbers across the morning papers.
That is precisely what Ghanaians are witnessing with the publication of the 2025 State Ownership Report by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA).
Government communicators have spent the last forty-eight hours mounting radio platforms to boast about a dramatic financial turnaround across state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We are told the sector has moved from a painful GHS 2.25 billion net loss in 2024 to an astonishing GHS 19.80 billion net profit for 2025.
Strip away the political paint, apply standard balance sheet scrutiny, and the celebrated miracle vanishes like morning mist over the Volta Lake.
The entire headline recovery is built on paper currency revaluation, unreconciled balance sheet contractions, and an operational reality that is deteriorating by the day.
SIGA 2025 SOE REPORT: HEADLINE CLAIMS VS REAL OPERATIONAL DATA
Metric Reported Headline Real Operational Baseline
Sector Net Profit GHS 19.80 Billion GHS 8.08 Billion (Without FX)
FX Revaluation Gain GHS 11.72 Billion One-off Paper Adjustment
Underlying Net Operating Profit Claimed “Turnaround” DECREASED by 22.7% YoY
Underlying Net Sector Profit Claimed “Turnaround” DECREASED by 17.1% YoY
Sector Equity Movement GHS 19.80bn Profit SHRANK by GHS 12.69 Billion
SOE Dividend Remittance Claimed Boom DROPPED 45.5% ($1.4M total)
The fundamental driver of this alleged profit recovery is not increased productivity, better state management, or fiscal discipline. It is a single, massive GHS 11.72 billion foreign exchange revaluation gain.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) alone accounts for almost the entire sector swing. ECG moved from a GHS 8.84 billion foreign exchange loss in 2024 to a GHS 12.16 billion exchange gain in 2025, single-handedly providing roughly 95 percent of the entire profit turnaround highlighted by SIGA.
A paper currency gain is not cash. It cannot buy transformers, fix leaking distribution lines, or clear debts owed to independent power producers.
When you remove these paper currency revaluation gains to evaluate real business health, underlying sector net profit actually decreased by 17.1 percent year-on-year. Even worse, underlying operating profit dropped by 22.7 percent. The core operational engines of our state enterprises are producing less real wealth today than they did a year ago.
Then comes the balance sheet mathematical mystery that SIGA conveniently ignores. Basic accounting dictates that when a corporate sector generates GHS 19.80 billion in real net profits, total equity should expand.
Instead, SIGA’s own data shows that total sector equity contracted by an unreconciled GHS 12.69 billion over the exact same period. How does a state sector post nearly 20 billion Ghana Cedi in fresh profits while simultaneously losing over 12 billion Ghana Cedi in fundamental equity value?
The ultimate test of any commercial enterprise is cash remitted to its shareholder. If state-owned enterprises were truly floating in cash profits, the national treasury would be reaping the reward.
Yet, total dividends remitted to the Government of Ghana by fully state-owned entities dropped by 45.5 percent in 2025 down to a paltry $1.4 million. Out of fifty-three fully state-owned enterprises, only two paid a single cedi in dividends.
The contrast in economic management could not be sharper. Under the New Patriotic Party, the policy focus was clear: reform state enterprise governance through strict Public Financial Management enforcement, mandate verified external audits, and build real balance sheet value. The NPP understood that state institutions must produce actual cash returns and operational efficiency, not paper accounting tricks.
What the 2025 SIGA report presents is a textbook case of paper profit diplomacy.
Ghanaians paying high tariffs and dealing with state inefficiencies cannot eat foreign exchange paper gains. The government must stop using unearned currency adjustments to claim economic victory, face the unreconciled holes in state sector equity, and focus on real operational discipline before the mirage completely fades.
