Top officials have urged that country’s government to float its minority shares in Vodafone and Airtel, in a bid to boost trading activity on the bourse.

Ghana’s government has a 30% stake in Vodafone Ghana, while the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), a state-owned oil exploration agency, owns 25% of Airtel Ghana.

Chairman of the governing council of Ghana’s Stock Exchange (GSE), Sam Mensah, said at the exchange’s annual general meeting in Accra that “ these stakes should be separately floated in the interest of the bourse and the market at large.”

“These are stocks that would make the market interesting to investors and so we think that if government lists its minority interest in them, it will help increase activities on the bourse," Mensah said.

He indicated that Ghana needed to take “far reaching listing and divestiture decisions” to help support the growth of the GSE and the market at large.

Director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Adu Anane Antwi, reiterated the call on government to make it compulsory for all telecommunication companies in the country to list a specific amount of their stake on the GSE after five years of operations.

Reacting to the call, Ghana telecom operators say they are considering the move to list on the GSE to economically empower locals.

The government wants the multinational telecom companies to follow the example of Tullow Oil the British oil giant, which listed on the GSE last Year, in the process shedding four million shares to Ghanaian investors.

Chief executive officer of Vodafone Ghana, Kyle Whitehill, has forecast that telecommunications operators will list on the local bourse ‘in the next couple of years.

He said the move would ensure locals benefited from the country’s economic wealth.

Previously, the former chief executive officer of MTN Ghana, Brett Goschen, has also noted that MTN could offer shares in the form of private placements in the West African country.

Recently, some key management of Airtel Ghana, TiGo Ghana and Glo Ghana have also backed the idea of mobile telecommunication firms offloading part of their shares to Ghanaian investors through the stock exchange.