The Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr Joseph Cudjoe, has urged the management of New Times Corporation (NTC) to be abreast with financial reporting in accordance with the Public Finance Management Act.
This, he said, would help the Public Enterprises Ministry and State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) to efficiently monitor the performance of the corporation more effectively.
Mr Cudjoe said this at a meeting with the Management of the NTC yesterday when he visited the corporation to obtain first-hand information about its operations, issues and way forward.
Present at the meeting was the Managing Director of the NTC, Martin Adu-Owusu; Editor of the Ghanaian Times, Dave Agbenu and the Deputy Editor of the Spectator, Mrs Georgina Quiattoo.
Others were Human Resources and Administrative Manager, Felix Acheampong; Marketing Manager, Alfred Koomson; Chief Accountant, Precious K. Kuagbedzi and Ismaila Attaul-lah, Internal Auditor.
According to him, the creation of the Ministry of Public Enterprises was in line with the President’s vision of changing the narrative about public enterprises by ensuring that they became more profitable.
While acknowledging the challenges faced by the NTC and the efforts being made by management of the corporation in turning its fortunes around, Mr Cudjoe implored management to leverage its resources to improve its operations.
Additionally, he asserted the readiness of his outfit to work with the NTC and other SOEs to ensure that they were profitably viable as some ideas such as the merging of SOEs was currently under consideration.
Furthermore, Mr Cudjoe challenged the Marketing Department of NTC to bring forth producst and service delivery innovative strategies by studying current trends in order to make the paper more competitive in the market.
The Managing Director (MD) of NTC, Mr Martin Adu-Owusu, receiving the Minister and delegation expressed his gratitude and appreciated their efforts at promoting efficient and profitable operations of the public enterprises.
Although the NTC had gone through challenging times which had affected its cash flow and expenditure, MrAdu-Owusu said management had taken pragmatic steps to improve its performance.
Mr Adu-Owusu further appealed to the Minister of Public Enterprise to help his outfit obtain the receivable-debt owed by Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and Ministries Department Agencies (MDAs) through the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to ensure its sustainability.
“NTC is passionately appealing to your high office to assist us by appealing to the Ministry of Finance to arrange the payment of our receivable-debt owed by the MDAs and MMDAs through the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to ensure the sustainability of the corporation,” he said.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY & ANITA ANKRAH