Multinational corporations operating in Ghana, mainly mobile and telecoms, may soon be compelled to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), as government mulls ways of giving locals a chance to buy shares in the firms.

The director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Adu Anane-Antwi, has said the firms should consider listing on the local bourse as part of their ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) initiatives in the country.

“The best CSR activity these multinationals especially the telcos can do for the country and its people is for them to offload some of their stake to the people through the stock market and not necessarily building a few schools for the villages in which they operate among others things,” Anane-Antwi said.

The policy, which might come into operation later this year, is a rapid response to some major multinationals’ refusal to list on the local bourse, denying locals a chance to have a stake in the companies.

So far, only a handful of multinationals, the latest being Tullow, have listed.

Despite raking in profits annually, none of the six multinational telecom companies in the country – MTN, Vodafone; Tigo; Airtel; Glo and Expresso – have listed on the GSE.

But firms such as MTN are listed on the stock exchanges of other African countries, such as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa.