A policy by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) encouraging state-owned enterprises to do business with one another has come under intense public scrutiny, with critics arguing that its application in Ghana’s insurance sector is distorting market competition and bypassing procurement law.
SIGA exists to oversee and administer the State’s interests in specified entities, promote efficient and profitable operations, improve corporate governance, monitor performance, and ensure that these entities contribute meaningfully to national development. Proponents of the inter-trading framework argue it is a legitimate ownership strategy, saying that when one specified entity produces goods or services needed by another, it is commercially sensible to encourage such intra-portfolio transactions provided they are competitive and lawful.
By encouraging specified entities to transact with one another where commercially viable and consistent with procurement and governance frameworks, SIGA is effectively promoting the retention and circulation of economic value within its own portfolio ecosystem, instead of value leaking out of the public sector through external procurement.
The controversy, however, sharpened significantly after SIGA directed state-owned enterprises to prioritise insurance placements with state-linked insurers SIC Insurance Public Limited Company (PLC) and SIC Life Insurance Limited.
A December 11, 2025 letter authored and signed by SIGA itself uses the word “directive” in its subject heading and references compliance follow-up in its body. SIC Managing Director James Agyenim-Boateng subsequently told JoyNews the communications amounted to encouragement, not a directive, a characterisation critics say is contradicted by the document’s own language.
Across parts of the system, insurers outside the SIC structure are reporting non-renewal of existing policies, reduced participation in state-linked risk placements, and sudden shifts in engagement patterns. GLICO General Insurance Limited has formally written to the President, raising concerns about disruption of established insurance placements, reallocation of portfolios without competitive assessment, market distortion and regulatory neutrality.
The issue is complicated by SIC Insurance PLC’s ownership structure. SIC Insurance PLC is a publicly listed company. Government holds a minority stake of approximately one-third, while the majority of shareholders are private and institutional investors. So when state institutions are guided toward SIC, they are not transacting internally within government — they are directing public business toward a commercial entity with mixed ownership.
IMANI Africa formally presented a petition to President Mahama during a civil society encounter at the Presidency on March 30, 2026, warning of what it described as a systematic takeover of Ghana’s insurance sector by unseen political hands hiding behind administrative directives to override legitimate contracts.
Government Communications Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu has said President Mahama will review the IMANI petition and take appropriate action where required.
Defenders of the policy maintain it is rooted in SIGA’s statutory mandate and represents sound portfolio thinking, arguing that when state enterprises channel business to external providers even where suitable internal capacity exists, they weaken the collective financial strength of the public asset portfolio. Critics counter that encouraging coordination is fundamentally different from directing outcomes, and that procurement law requires competitive tendering, transparent evaluation, and equal opportunity for qualified providers regardless of ownership.
