The 10th anniversary of the Ghana Corporate Executives Awards 2025 came off on Saturday, November 22, 2025 in Accra under the theme: “The Role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Corporate Governance and Economic Development”.
It was powered by the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana.
The keynote speaker, Prof. Kwaku Appiah-Adu, a Professor of Strategy at the GIMPA School of Public Service and Governance was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the event where other influential corporate leaders in the last decade were also honoured.
The Lifetime Achievement Award given to Prof Appiah-Adu is dedicated to individuals whose careers and contributions have had a lasting and profound impact in their fields and have demonstrated a lifetime of innovative and visionary leadership in the corporate sector.
Prof Appiah-Adu spoke on the topic, “The Role of PPPs in National Development.”
He said Ghana’s path to a sustainable, inclusive and transformative development requires a synergetic partnership between the public and private sectors.
He underscored this point while calling for a renewed national commitment to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as facilitators of national development.
“For about three decades, I have had the privilege of serving Ghana in diverse capacities — as a technocrat, strategist, and policy advisor — navigating the delicate intersection between government reform and private sector dynamism.
Through this experience, one lesson has remained clear: the transformation of nations in the 21st Century demands a symbiotic relationship between the public and private spheres,” he noted.
Additionally, he emphasised that no government, irrespective of how visionary, can single-handedly deliver inclusive development; neither can the private sector thrive sustainably without an enabling public sector that provides policy clarity, ensures stability, and safeguards the public interest.
“The nexus of these two forces — when built on trust, transparency, and shared purpose — forms the bedrock of enduring prosperity,” he asserted.
PPPs as Stimuli for Modern Governance Moreover, Prof. Appiah-Adu stressed that PPPs are not merely contractual arrangements for financing infrastructure but enable government to leverage private-sector innovation, efficiency, and capital — while maintaining regulatory oversight and public-interest safeguards.
For emerging economies such as Ghana, he said, PPPs offer a practical path to bridge the huge gap between national aspirations and the limits of public budgets.
On sectors where PPPs can fast-track development at a scale government alone cannot accomplish, he cited energy, transport, healthcare, urban development, and digital infrastructure.
“They transform government from being the sole provider of public goods to becoming an enabler and facilitator of innovation,” he stressed.
However, Prof. Appiah-Adu cautioned that while PPPs offer considerable opportunities, many have failed due to weak fundamentals, deficient contract design, inadequate institutional capacity, political discontinuity, and misaligned motivations. “I have witnessed how even the most ambitious initiatives can falter when accountability mechanisms are inadequate, when public institutions lack the technical expertise to negotiate effectively, or when political transitions disrupt continuity,” he recounted.
