The Member of Parliament for Ketu North, Eric Edem Agbana, has raised a governance concern about State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) sponsoring award schemes that recognise chief executives, ministers and public officials, arguing that such resources would be better directed toward tangible community projects.
In a statement shared on his official Facebook page, Agbana said the trend appeared to be growing and called for attention from the Office of the Chief of Staff. He acknowledged that similar practices occurred under previous administrations, framing his concern as a structural governance issue rather than a partisan one.
His comments arrive three weeks before the sixth edition of the Ghana Minister of the Year Awards, scheduled for June 6, 2026, at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra. The event, organised by Big Events Ghana, is expected to recognise ministers based on performance evaluations covering their 2025 sectoral results. Agbana said he was not aware of the specific sponsors of this particular event but used its proximity to raise the broader question of how public institutions allocate resources to such ceremonies.
The MP’s concern centres on a specific accountability gap. No public framework currently obligates SOEs to disclose what they spend on sponsorships of award ceremonies or to justify such expenditure against service delivery outcomes. Board approvals, where they exist, are internal decisions rarely subject to parliamentary scrutiny unless they appear in audit reports.
Agbana sits on the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament, a body that examines the financial statements and audit reports of public institutions. That committee role gives his concern a particular institutional weight: if SOE sponsorship of awards does not appear clearly in financial disclosures, it becomes difficult for Parliament to track or question.
He argued that the funds being directed toward such sponsorships could instead fund Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects with measurable community impact, specifically naming schools, artificial turf pitches, boreholes and market infrastructure as examples of more productive alternatives. He also raised the concern that rewarding institutions or officials through sponsored awards could create a perception of recognition for performance that may not be independently verified.
The question of what public institutions spend on image and recognition activities has surfaced periodically in Ghana without producing formal disclosure rules. Agbana’s statement puts the issue back on the table at a moment when the government has made fiscal discipline a stated priority, asking the Office of the Chief of Staff to take a closer look at where that line is currently being drawn.
