FDA HONORED WITH TWO AWARDS AT THE PUBLIC ENTERPRISES LEAGUE TABLE (PELT) EVENT

The Food and Drugs Authority on Thursday, 30th June 2022, received two awards at the maiden edition of the Public Enterprises League Table (PELT) Awards at Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City Accra. The awards scheme, - a collaboration between the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) and the Ministry of Finance was established to reward hardworking State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and specified entities in the country.

The Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who was the Special Guest at the event, through live streaming of the event, commended the Hon. Minister of the Public Enterprises, Mr. Joseph Cudjoe, for introducing the Scheme and indicated that the PELT Awards will help recognise the good work of SOEs and specified entities. In his remarks, he expressed his support for this initiative as provides a pathway for recognizing well-performing Boards, CEOs, and their management. Dr. Bawumia said that "It is my wish that the Public Enterprises League Table becomes the gold standard for recognizing specified state entities whose responsiveness and performance would be open for all to see".

During the opening, the Hon. minister for Public Enterprises, Mr. Joseph Cudjoe explained that the newly launched award scheme is to generate a healthy competition amongst State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the country. According to him, the aim is to change the 65-year-old narrative of high indebtedness, loss-making, non-performance and collapse of state entities. "The awards aspect of the PELT as we are going to witness is to provide non-pecuniary incentives for improved performance and to recognize the CEOs/MDs/DGs and Boards of the good-performing state entities," he said.

Explaining what the objective for the PELT, Mr Cudjoe said that the award scheme would rank how the public enterprises have performed in terms of the contracts they signed with SIGA. He added that these public enterprises have gone through a negotiation process and agreed with SIGA on some terms and conditions, indicators and targets, and this PELT Awards would seek to recognize and reward their good performance.

The Honourable Minister also stated that contrary to how the regular football league table is ranked where the last on the table is relegated, the PELT Awards will rather inform resource allocation such as time, training and capacity building to strengthen entities.

Speaking at the event, the Director-General of SIGA, Ambassador Edward Boateng shared his delight about the use of SIGA's contract negotiation as the baseline for the awards.

The award categories included Overall Specified Entity of The Year, Most Innovative SOE, Most Financially Sustainable Regulator, Most Compliant SOE, SOE of the Year, Best Inter-Trading Specified, Most Efficient Regulator, Most Innovative Regulator, Most Compliant Regulator, Regulator of the Year, and Most Digital Specified Entity.