ABSTRACT
Restructuring in the energy sector of Ghana‟s economy is ongoing and Volta River Authority, a lead actor, is not an exception. The Authority intends to adopt public private partnership (PPP) vehicle to convert all non-power businesses (health, education, hospitality and transportation, local government administration of the Akosombo Township) into stand-alone commercial ventures. It therefore outlined the „BRAISE‟ strategy and tasked the Change Management Team to sensitize all staff on the process towards the New VRA. Using 150 respondents, mainly permanent employees, this study investigated readiness of the health services department, now VRA Hospitals Strategic Business Unit (SBU) to operate as a stand-alone commercial venture. We employed non-parametric sign test and descriptive statistic to analyze primary data gathered. The results show that there is enough evidence to suggest proportionate in-depth knowledge of
„BRAISE‟ strategy among staff across the locations. However, the evidence suggest lack of staff support for the foreign direct investment (FDI) process. The results for infrastructure readiness has average mean of 4.5 (out of total score of 5) and standard deviation of 0.7. This suggest that the facilities are infrastructure ready to attract FDI. Further, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that staff are not dedicated and willing to do additional work. Since it is costly to attract FDI to execute PPP arrangement we encourage the Authority to ensure a good balance among infrastructure readiness and employees‟ commitment and willingness to do additional work. Government should educate public servants on the importance of FDI, how it will enhance their skills and make them more efficient and productive.
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE
Restructuring in the Energy sector of Ghana‟s economy is on and VRA a lead actor is not an exemption. With the introduction of VRA beyond aid, the process seemed to be fast-tracked. The company in the bid to convert all non-power businesses of the authority into stand-alone commercial ventures set the year 2020 to achieve this target.
The authority, by its creation, is involved in other businesses in non-power sectors such as health, education, hospitality and transportation, and is responsible for local government administration of the Akosombo Township. These entities are said to have been causing a drain on the operations of VRA in the light of challenges confronting the power sector. The legacy debt, financial sustainability of entities and imprudent management of hydro resources are a few of the challenges facing the authority. Following this development, the entire non-power sector were converted into strategic business units (SBUs).
Problem Statement
The traditional vertical SBU seems not to be yielding the kind of result it was set to achieve and therefore the need for SBU across organizational boundaries. This, in the contention set forward by Gillis J. J. (2007) will make cross‐ unit cooperative energies, advance radical redistributing, cultivate the development of new organizations out of what had once been capacities, and seek after development through key coalitions at this equivalent useful dimension. Both corporate and
SBU officials need down to earth help to choose which chances to seek after and how to
organize them. But, that is not the focus of this work. Irrespective of the kind of alliance a firm will adopt requires massive support from the existing human and infrastructure resources of it. Success or failure of the radical of a corporate reorganization in both structure and ownership ought to be cursorily looked into by the application of employees‟ readiness to change tool. According to Fixen & Blaise (2008), three factors are vital to readiness for change assessment: Supportive organization, the requisite level of staff skills and effective leadership.
Now, employees’ absence of versatility to change has been observed to be a vital purpose behind the high disappointment rate of hierarchical change endeavors, contended Hong and Kim (2002). The unique nature of the VRA Hospitals SBU, for instance, is that a chunk of their demand base is National Health Insurance Scheme clientele with a limited credit facility with few corporate clientele. Being used to the culture of public service with Corporate Social Responsibility mindset (nonprofit motive) and the need to switch code to public service with profit motive under the proposed investment arrangement requires many adjustments on the part of the employees. It is perhaps due to this that the Authority guaranteed salaries and welfare commitments to all staff but whether or not this intervention is enough to transform and operate the kind of hospital that will be a model of excellence in the market as enshrine in its vision statement, is not yet established. VRA Hospitals SBU, in an attempt to accelerate growth and development, has always encouraged foreign direct investment through many collaborative efforts with UK Motech Life health programmes.
