Ghana’s Joint Venture Companies (JVCs) have emerged as the strongest source of dividend income for government, with companies in which the state holds minority interests accounting for 97.12 per cent of all dividends received from the state portfolio in 2025.
The companies contributed approximately GH¢1.19 billion in dividends to government, according to the 2025 State Ownership Report published by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA).
The performance presents a striking contrast with wholly owned state enterprises, which despite recording a combined GH¢19.80 billion net profit, paid only GH¢16 million in dividends to government during the year.
The figures could strengthen the case for a closer examination of how government manages its various forms of ownership and whether commercially successful minority investments can generate stronger returns than some wholly state-owned enterprises.
JVC profits rise 36.55%
The overall JVC portfolio recorded a 36.55 per cent increase in net profit, reaching GH¢3.14 billion in 2025.
Total assets also expanded by 25.99 per cent to GH¢96.69 billion, indicating a significant increase in the size of the JVC portfolio.
The performance was driven particularly strongly by JVCs in which the government holds minority interests.
Those companies recorded net profits of GH¢61.32 billion, compared with GH¢21.06 billion previously.
Their contribution to government dividends was even more significant, accounting for almost the entire dividend income generated across the state portfolio.
Minority stakes prove valuable
The figures highlight the potential value of government’s minority equity holdings in commercially oriented joint ventures.
Rather than carrying the full cost and operational risks of owning an enterprise outright, the state can retain an equity interest while participating in the profits generated by commercially successful companies.
That model appears to have produced significant returns in 2025.
The GH¢1.19 billion dividend contribution from minority-interest JVCs dwarfs the GH¢16 million paid by SOEs, although the two categories are not directly comparable because they involve different ownership structures and dividend policies.
Still, the contrast offers an important measure of the relative financial returns generated by different forms of state participation in the economy.
A lesson for state investment strategy
The JVC figures could therefore have implications beyond the performance of individual companies.
They raise questions about whether government should place greater emphasis on commercially viable partnerships and strategic minority investments, while reassessing enterprises that require repeated public support but generate limited returns to the shareholder.
For SIGA, the task is to ensure that these investments remain commercially sound and that government receives an appropriate return on its equity.
The 2025 results suggest that the JVC portfolio is already doing a significant part of that job.
The challenge will be to preserve the performance while strengthening transparency, governance and dividend discipline across the portfolio.
For taxpayers, the most important figure may ultimately be the GH¢1.19 billion rather than the much larger profit figures reported elsewhere in the state-enterprise sector.
It represents actual cash returned to government from a portfolio in which the state has minority interests — and demonstrates that, in 2025, some of Ghana’s most profitable state investments were those in which government did not own the companies outright.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
