Ghana’s Public Procurement 10th Annual Public Forum on “Public Procurement: propelling the wheels of the private sector to deliver the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda”

On the 18th November 2021 the Alliance for Integrity attended the 10th annual public forum organized by Ghana’s Public Procurement Authority (PPA), which is a member of our local Advisory Group. The annual public forum brought together several stakeholders including the civil society organizations, private sector, media, and others. The event provided a very interactive platform at which PPA gave updates of activities on delivering their mandates towards improving efficiency and transparency in public procurement.

The theme for this year’s event was “Public Procurement: propelling the wheels of the private sector to deliver the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda.”

Participants from various sectors – including partners and stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector, which involved companies and businesses on the supply chain, civil society organizations, the media, business associations, and individual procurement practitioners and professionals – attended the public forum this year, which started off with the key note address delivered by the Deputy Finance Minister, John Kuma, on behalf of the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta. The event was chaired by Chairman of the Governing Board of the PPA; Christopher Ameyaw Ekumfi.

On updates of PPA’s activities in 2021, the Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PPA, Frank Mante, indicated that the authority had undertaken some capacity building trainings for the procurement officers who are working in the ministries, departments, and agencies across the country. It was also acknowledged that similar trainings were underway to train the suppliers and other individual practitioners on the procurement laws and best practices. He also stated that the Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS) was in its second phase and hopefully will be fully implemented by 2023. As such, the authority has been engaging with actors and addressing concerns of actors about the transition. Additionally, it was indicated that when the GHANEPS is fully implemented, tender publication, tender submission by service providers, tender opening, awards of contracts, and contracts management among others will all be done electronically. However, the Acting CEO underscored the issue of resource constraints facing the authority, and so how to fund and sustain the capacity development of the public and private actors on the procurement supply chain is critical for the vision of PPA in the future. More so, fraudulent acts among suppliers, such as signature forgery, fake certificates, and other documentations was said to be on the rise. And that fast forward, the authority has started blacklisting such suppliers who are found guilty of those fraudulent malpractices. More other investigations were being conducted and appropriate sanctions will be applied where necessary.


A relevant session of the event was the panel discussion moment with four panel members participating in the discussion: the representative of the Association of Ghana Industries, lawyer Kwame Jantuah; Michael Akurang Opoku of the Ministry of Trade and Industry; William Obeng of the Ghana EximBank and the PPA Acting CEO Frank Mante.

During the panel discussions it was strongly argued that the private sector could be propelled by relevant capacity building trainings and awareness raising, making the procurement processes simple and worker friendly, ensuring that the E-procurement system enhances systems integrity and mitigates corruption in procurement processes, minimize breaches, mitigate delayed payments to suppliers, facilitate effective compliance and also adopt measures to make local companies and SMEs more competitive.

At the open forum session our input was made in underscoring that integrity is crucial in order to achieve a competitive and efficient system. The Alliance for Integrity works to promote integrity among companies, their business partners, and other relevant actors in the economic system. We pull together anti-corruption and compliance experts to share knowledge and to offer support to local and global partners. In addition, we develop practical training programmes, which improves knowledge on compliance.

We are thankful for having the PPA as a partner in the Alliance for Integrity network. We will be working on engaging them further regarding a possible collaboration and adapting of feasible measures in order to enhance public sector procurement compliance in Ghana.

Author: Abdul-Rauf Yussif (Network Manager)